Disclaimer: The SVM/Sookie Stackhouse series belongs to Charlaine Harris. I also owe a nod to Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 for the glove bit in the first scene below.

*Heads Up* This story contains portrayals of rape, other violence and sexual situations, medical trauma, and mental illness. Please note it's a tragedy.

Chapter 4

effectual: potentially effective in producing a desired or intended result

"Kick him in the balls, ladies. Hard! Don't hold back."

Standing in a karate studio, Tara and I faced our self-defense instructor, Darcy, a short, middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense haircut sprinkled with gray. She wore a white polo shirt tucked into an elasticized pair of swishy pants that made her belly bulge and her butt flat, but I could see from the bands of muscle in her arms that the cream puff look was only an illusion. She's not to be messed with. I imagined that in her spare time, she enjoyed counted cross stitch, cake decorating, pumping iron, and kicking ass.

Darcy had stuffed a pink rubber cleaning glove with a soft, squishy material and attached it to a punching bag. Then she'd moved out of the way to let us all have a go.

We laughed and took turns attacking the bizarre appendage like it was a sport, though after only a short time, the tone grew serious. Tara kicked upward with such force the whole glove ripped off the bag.

"Good," Darcy said, meaning nothing about our technique. We were all panting and stirred up and not at all comfortable. The laughter was gone; the dangling pink bits were no longer funny.

Of course it wouldn't be until later when I'd fully realize that sometimes there's nothing to be done. Or not enough. Not really, anyway. Fighting gives you a backbone, holds you up sturdy enough to allow you to still look at yourself in the mirror—I tried, you can say to yourself (repeat)—but doesn't always change things. It's galling when your best isn't enough. Maddening. Infuriating.

Fuck it all to hell.

accomplice: somebody who helps somebody else to commit a crime or misdeed

Pam comes today since Eric hasn't been able to take any time off from work. I hear the click of the key in the front door, its long, tortured moan, and the shuffle of her feet on the wooden floor before she calls out to me.

"Sookie?" Her voice has enough lift at the end to make it sound like a genuine question, as though the thought crosses her mind that I might not actually be here. She doesn't know what the lemon eyes know.

It's a wonderful idea, not being here. But I am here, fastened in place and shaped and formed by all of these eyes. I hold silent, pretending not to be here. Run and hide! I'm amused for a moment by my own game, even join in with the laughter. My voice sounds thready and strange.

"It's so dark." She's louder than the laughter; I'm encouraged.

I hear her snapping blinds and drawing curtains. Her footsteps work their way down the hall, room by room as I imagine light flooding the rest of the house. There's a thrill in this, in being sneaky. My body responds—still does what it was meant to do—its pulse quickening, throbbing in my temples. I marvel over the rush in my gut. Excitement! Energizing! If only I could jar some of it for later, then I might…

"Sookie!" Pam says, finally striding into my room. Her tone is insistent, her steps purposeful in my direction. She sees me.

I'm here! Surprise!

But that's my private game, not for her to know. "Pam!" I respond aloud, taking care to match her tone. "I haven't seen you in a coon's age."

She reaches for me, her fingers outstretched to touch, and I'm so excited to see her that I forget to flinch. When she rubs at my cheeks, it's surprisingly okay.

"What is this?" she says with a hint of annoyance. "Whatever it is, it's not coming off." After some time, I pull away, finally irritated. "It's yellow," she adds. "Yellow smooches."

"Oh!" I laugh, realizing I haven't been entirely careful in hiding my secret. I clench my stained fingers behind my back. "That's nothing. Good to see you." I nod at the plastic bag in her hand. Watcha got there?"

She passes it to me. "It was out on the porch."

When I look inside, I see the calendar tea towels Maxine promised. There's a note, too. "Happy Halloween," it says. "Honey, I want you to have these from my kitchen. I was going to save them for you as a homecoming present, but hoped they would cheer you up now. You'll get there!"

"It's Halloween!" I remark, turning to tear a page off my word-a-day calendar.

Pam looks at me strangely. "It's November second," she informs me. In the ensuing silence between us, I hear all of the rustling and shifting surrounding us. She speaks over the noise. "What happened to your clock?"

"Electrical problem. Bill gave me the name of his electrician, but he hasn't come by yet." I don't tell her about the bare flesh living in the walls, sneaking about in the overgrown foliage, peering out and making off with the lemons, but I think maybe if I confide in anyone else, I'd choose her.

"How do you know when to take your medication?"

"Sam gave me his watch." I twist the watch on my arm, hiding the numbers. One time I hit a wrong button and since then, couldn't get it straightened out. So now I simply wait until I'm in pain, and then wait a little longer until I take another dose.

"This isn't any good for you," she finally says, looking around. I think she means well, but I'm angry at once that there is any assumption that it would. She has more to say, but doesn't, at least not to me. She stomps off. I hear her talking loudly and angrily, on her phone presumably, but try as I might, I can't make out what she is saying.

When she returns, she suggests a shower and then stands by as I maneuver through the laborious steps. Finally clean and dry, I take the nightshirt from her. It's a silky one with long sleeves and buttons down the front. New, I think. I can't remember how it got in my drawer. As my robe falls off my shoulders, she cracks a lewd joke about headlights. But looking up as I move to cover myself, I see her lips, tightened in a serious, straight line. I apologize. "It's the walls and their tittering." There. Now she knows the truth too. Her head is cocked.

For a moment or so, I allow myself to slip into a world of ogling eyes and raucous rattle-buzz. It swells, reaches a crescendo, and holds steady. The pressure from Pam's hand on my shoulder brings me back, as the steel gates in my mind work to shut out the clamor. Now I can hear the snip of the long, thin scissors as she cuts a tag. I watch her motions carefully as she discards the tag, pushes the trashcan against the wall, and places the scissors in a cup on the nightstand beside my bed.

Her head is cocked again. She's gazing at the wallpaper. When she says, "Hmm, look at that," I expect she's about to tell me what she sees. But instead, she reaches up and snags the tiniest loose edge of wallpaper near the window overlooking the garden. With her neatly manicured nails, she tugs, peeling the longest strip of wallpaper I've seen yet, flapping like a banner.

resolve: 1. make decision 2. solve difficulty 3. settle argument 4. dispel doubts 5. change

I have a new mission. A new purpose. You may help if you'd like.

I can get up and move a little more now. The secret is in the pills. Just a smidge more is all it takes. Then I can get up and move with more carefree abandonment than I've felt in months. Or maybe it just seems like months. I don't know how long it's been, really. Arlene's calendar says November 2, but it seems to have been stuck there for a while now. I suppose I could make it any day I choose. I could peel off another day as I see fit. Here in my own little world, that's the day it would be then. And what would it matter?

Anyway, I have a pair of scissors. Long and pointy and sharp. Shiny. I can work the tip under the edge of a bit of wallpaper. It does no good to be quick about it. Patience is needed. If you try to tear too prematurely, the paper splits into a feather edge that's damn near impossible to remove. But if you ease the tip of the scissors underneath, slowly, carefully…that's it. If I had an extra pair, I'd give you one too. But here. Look at that! I've gotten a nice edge. And now…oh…I grab hold and pull. And it's the loveliest thing in the world pulling off long strips at once. Relieving. Better than an orgasm. Oh, but who are we kidding? Not much is better than an orgasm, is it? I'm talking about a good, solid, rocking orgasm that whooshes right on through. I can say that to you, can't I?

But the voices in the walls…I wish they'd stop. I'll just sit here for a spell. Don't mind me. I'll rest for a bit before I take a smidge more and have at it again. There's still a long way to go, and I don't know how I'll get the top. Maybe when Eric's free, I'll ask him to help.

reality: 1. real existence 2. type of existence

The voices are bad today. Worse than ever.

They have much to say, clattering and clamoring in such a disorganized way I can't make it out.

"Shhh!" I say, which makes them laugh.

I put my hands to my ears to no avail. I put a pillow over my head. I cover my body with layers of blankets, sweating beneath them. It's not real, I tell myself, and for a moment I believe. Except that I can hear the crowded voices. I can't understand them, but I can hear them. They're not merely stuffed inside my crazy head. They're outside of me, poking their way in. And it's daytime, so I know it's not one of my bad dreams. I hold up my hand in front of my face to prove it to myself. I curl my fingers, feel the pinch of them digging into my palm. Real. I twist and feel the pain radiating from my hip down to my toes. REAL. The voices are real too. I swear it. I hear them.

For a while, I work this pattern of thought over and over, testing, prodding, searching for something to form up in me. Something solid. Some kind of firm, unyielding step out of the quicksand. I try building that steel gate in my mind, with heavy interlocking plates that gnash together tightly. It seems solid—I even hear the clang of metal closing—but the voices get through its clenching teeth. I put my hands to my ears. Panic wells up when I realize I can't stop the whorl twisting my brain. It seems wrong, but I can't stop it. So it must be real. Or not. Maybe it's not real.

I hold my hand up again. I tell my hand what to do, and it obeys. I examine the lines on my palm and fingers. My hand. I push it out to hold it in a halting position, feeling the muscles in my arm stretch. Stop.

I tried taking a smidge more, but that seems not to be working so much anymore. Getting around is more difficult than ever, so I lie here, flat out. Surrounded.

The walls are tattered. Yet I see movement frequently, a tip-toeing among the ragged edges and the top section, still fruiting. And of course, the eyes, always goggling.

I hold up my hand, curl my fingers. Rub my forehead. Press my hands to my ears. Sweat beneath the blankets.

camaraderie: a feeling of close friendship and trust among a group of people

Can you keep a secret?

All right, then. I'll tell you something. Eric came today. He's here now!

"Sookie, you smell like a donkey," he said, standing over me. I was so glad to see him, I didn't even care he was probably right. About my smelling like a donkey, that is.

"Eric!" I shouted so he could hear me over the din. "I haven't seen you in a coon's age!"

He observed me silently for a moment. "Work was nonstop," he explained, adding, "Victor." Well, that was about as much as I'd expected.

"Get up," he said, and I reached for the crutches that he held in front of me. "You're taking a shower."

He followed me, watched while I got started, and then left. It was quiet in the stall, thank heavens, though my head felt strangely light and empty, and small movements made it whip as though I'd been jerked. Once I finished soaping up, I simply sat beneath the water. The spray against my skull was white noise, wonderfully void of any meaning.

Eric's voice finally drew my head up. "Are you finished?"

Before I answered, he reached to twist the water to the off position, passed me one of Bill's thick white bath towels, and strode out again. Within minutes, he returned to help me up from the shower chair.

The first thing I noticed when I re-entered The Room was the lit-up alarm clock. "You fixed it!"

Eric paused. "We've been over this several times already. It was only a tripped circuit. I fixed it weeks ago by re-setting the circuit panel."

There was a clunk in my stomach. An odd dropping-out. I thought hard. If I remembered what Eric was telling me at all, the memory was slippery, a vague recollection that I could have easily imagined. It wouldn't hold up to my scrutiny.

The numbers on my clock glowed red. "Is that the right time?"

"Yes." He pushed a button on my bed to raise it from its flat position to demonstrate the bed was working too. That's when I noticed the new silk robe laid out for me.

"Oh, it's beautiful," I said. "Thank you."

He was already leaving The Room again, moving about the house like a man on a mission. Items were being moved. Papers shuffled. Doors opening and closing. Bags rustling. There was a clink of dishes in the sink, but I suspected he was just squirting some soap and water to let them soak. I wanted to be with him. It's so very hard to have to be still when a bustle of activity moves around you and you can't join in.

I looked down at the robe, a soothing blue silk with a fluttery hem and lace-trimmed sleeves, delicate and feminine. I thought maybe it could work a miracle, even with my hairy legs. But when I slipped it on, it felt oddly wrong. Not understanding, I dropped it reluctantly.

I hated to stand naked in the middle of The Room. With no other clothes handy, I scrambled as best as I could—if that's what you could call it—to pull the clean sheets over my nude body. I was grasping the covers when I noticed them.

Small Hands!

I held them out in front of me. Really, I swear they were smaller. I curled them. My fingers pinched my palms. Mine—yes, mine—but truly, they were smaller. I was starting to panic—Small Hands! would do me no good—when Eric walked into the room again, speaking as though he were continuing a conversation begun earlier.

"…and you have an appointment with Dr. Ludwig later this afternoon. Bobby will take you."

Suddenly I was irritated and not sure why. Bobby was the easy explanation, the easy fall guy, but not the only one, I thought. It tickled at my consciousness annoyingly, but when I looked at it squarely, it dissolved into nothingness. I swatted away the unease, unwilling to spoil my time with Eric. We'd had so little of it these days.

"I want to try," I told him outright. He got my gist immediately, but looked at me skeptically.

"I will hurt you," he answered.

"No, not like that." I reached for his fingertips, glancing them with my own.

Without another word, he climbed into bed next to me and got in position. Our position.

"Tell me some news," I said firmly.

Eric cleared his throat. I did my best to ignore the shifting and shuffling in the wallpaper.

"There was some trouble with our newest bartender," he finally answered, giving me more than I bargained for. I suspected trouble was a severe understatement, knowing Eric's history with bartenders. On top of that, I figured he'd chosen this topic to avoid mentioning something else, something that was likely the real problem. But no matter. No, no matter. It's his voice I wanted to hear. Mellow. Uninflected without sounding flat. He could turn me on by reading the Constitution.

I listened to the tenor of his voice. I remembered the Indian summer night we'd been stirred into motion by air so hot and thick, it'd seemed permanently stuck. We'd gone from room to room, opening blinds and windows and turning out lights from the back of the house to the front, where we'd been expelled onto the porch…

…Eric's arms stretched upward, pulling his soft, worn t-shirt over his head, and in the next fluid motion, pushed down, shedding jeans and briefs. I followed suit, my cast-offs mingling with his.

"This way," he directed in the darkness, reaching for my hands, stepping backwards. I followed his sure-footed padding across wooden porch planks. Within a few steps, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the inky night turning a dusky blue. There was enough light that I could see the expression on his face, so intent I had to laugh.

"You think it's funny?" he asked, his voice resolute.

"Yes." Still smiling, I turned my face up to his squarely.

And then he was laughing too. He reached around my waist, pulling me down on top of him. We fell onto the porch swing, which dipped and bucked wildly. For one crazy and lovely moment, I shut my eyes and swam in that carefree, lost sensation with him.

"Look at me," he finally said, and when my eyes opened, his mouth was on mine, and up was up and down was down again, and all the in-betweens were right where they needed to be. That was lovely too. Within moments, we set our perch to a slow, steady creak, working each other. Straddling him, my knees pressed against the wooden slats, digging into the creases. Eric gripped my muscles and soft flesh, straining with him. He leaned in, catching his cheek and mouth along my breasts before pulling back to watch, tension rigid in his arms, tugging at my hips. I swept his hair off his damp shoulders and then braced my arms against the back of the swing.

We labored there together, steadily edging, controlling the craze, hovering so close to tipping. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I finally told him to go. "Come on, Eric!" I urged. "Go, go, go!"

He smiled one more time before completely tensing and turning deadly serious. There's nothing light about frenzy…

Eric was still talking. My hands trailed down to the waistband of his jeans as he was telling me about the way Pam had dealt with an unruly patron. For once as of late, I thought I was ahead of him. "All the way?" I asked.

He carefully shifted next to me—the bed barely moved—and pushed his jeans off completely. It was a treat seeing all of his flesh, and now I fully realized how much I'd been missing.

"And this too?" I pulled at his t-shirt, which he promptly removed.

"Oh," I breathed out. "You're a tall drink of water." I took him in—looked him over—from top to bottom. I reached for him. He was hard to my touch in moments, in spite of my Small Hands!, and suddenly I really did want to climb on top of him right then and there. Soon, I promised myself.

He was still for me. Steady and motionless. I reached for his hand, tickled his fingertips, kissed them, and placed them between my legs, where he started to stroke. I took a deep breath, hopeful, and remembered the creak of the porch swing rocking with us. After a few minutes, I nudged his finger down a bit and concentrated more intently.

I'd pushed hard against him, muscles flexing.

"Smaller circles?" I suggested half-heartedly, numbness still settled between my legs.

He'd gripped me and pushed back.

I shut my eyes and focused, searching for that little catch to snag on pleasure. Anything. Any hint of a spark to stoke.

But it was just empty.

When I opened my eyes again, they were wet. Frustrated as hell, I really wanted to throw something. And the chattering from the walls had started up again, swelling quickly.

"Lover," he whispered, still stroking.

I wiped at my eyes. I wouldn't cry. No. We'd been over similar rocky terrain once before, and we'd do it again. It's a pain, but we'd work at it. I'd give myself more time to heal. Do some more Kegels. Try a vibrator next time. Light some Goddamn candles and say some self-affirmations. Jesus, it's fucking humiliating.

"Lover," he whispered again, but I could barely hear him over the growing din surrounding us.

"Shh!" I said to the walls. Their stadium-like chants upon cheers drew out, long and layered.

"More!" they shouted.

"Me too," I retorted. "I want more too!" Damn straight.

The sounds surrounding us immediately grew overwhelming, bearing down hard and suddenly with a weighted rush. At the same time, one broad, white shoulder rose up and over me. It was a simple flash of movement—but unexpected—and enough flesh and solid muscle to trigger familiar panic. "More!" someone shouted. Fear and arousal flooded me. All over. It made me sick. My gut retched, wrenched my whole body.

"Sookie!" a voice called. I whipped my head, began the painful scrabbling. Beneath me, the grit of concrete bit my skin.

"Sookie, look at me!" I scrunched my eyes to block the flicker of fluorescent light and his face hovering over my own, the most intimate of spaces. Suspended so close—too close—I knew without looking that his features would fall into meaningless pieces, here and there a flat plane, the bland color of putty, an etched line, a curve or swelling, an angle or hard edge. Terrifying fragments.

"Sookie!"

I pulled on myself from the inside—straight through—on that drawstring that would cinch me up tight.

Kick them in the balls, ladies.

I couldn't move my legs well enough, but I clawed for the dangly pink bits with my fucking Small Hands! and caught hold of flesh, twisting hard. Opening my eyes, I saw a glint of silver and knew what I needed to do. Pam, bless her.

I stretched, knowing how much it would hurt—and it did—but paid no mind. In only a moment, I was holding silver. Sharp. Yes, definitely sharp enough to stop the Bogeyman this time. It didn't take long—only a few decisive strikes. When his motion stilled, so did I.

It will have to be our secret, of course. Victor mustn't know. He's used to getting his way and doesn't like it very much when he doesn't.

I breathe deeply, trying to steady the gasp of pain. Maybe I'd grab for the orange and white bottles to take a smidge more, but I'm exhausted, and there's simply nothing to be done about it. The pain is rock solid and unyielding. Fossilized. It's a part of me now.

Eric is right next to me. Motionless. Unflinchingly so. I'll rest here with him and recover for a bit, at least as best as I can with all the feverish motion in the wallpaper. Such a strange and curious print.

I close my eyes to it, but the voices are screaming too.

I wish they'd stop.

I'm doing my best to block them out.