5.

I had no plan to ever share what happened with Caroline with Ms. Berry. Yet, I did feel better having shared with her my feelings about my parents' death and the whole G.G. situation and I could imagine someday, someday far away, eventually sharing more with her. I did not feel ready to do it when it came out, but I suppose that ultimately I must have grown to trust her or I would have said nothing at all.

The time came two weeks later when Ms. Berry was addressing with me why G.G. might believe herself to be in love, rather than acknowledge that she was being abused. "Yes, it might seem like she is being deluded, but in a way it is very rational and a protective, adaptive impulse. George, as a man when she was a child, and even now when she may have reached her full height, is so much bigger than her. He always was. Which is worse," she asked rhetorically, "do you suppose? Imagine you are G.G. Is it worse for someone to force you to do something that you don't want to do, to take while you do your best to resist, or to fancy that the person really loves you, and you love him? That his love is so strong that he cannot resist his impulses? Doing something (or even letting it happen) while thinking it is about love, is far easier when you have no other options."

"But she had options!" I declared, suddenly angry. "She could have told me or Rick, or someone at school. After whatever happened that first time, why did she let it continue?"

"Let's look at it another way," Ms. Berry calmly replied. "G.G. was sad and grieving, perhaps even numb. You did your best to be there for you, but you were numb and closed off, too, and there were so many other demands on your attention."

She held out her hand to indicate that I should continue to listen rather than argue and try to refute her claim. "Just hear me out and then you may respond however you wish." She dropped the hand when I nodded. "With George, G.G. had all of his attention and focus, at least while he was there. He gave her something else to feel, an affection that she was missing." She forestalled my reply once again by signaling "stop" with her hand.

Ms. Berry then anticipated what I would say. "Not because you weren't affectionate to her, I'm sure you were. But you could not be a perfect substitute for your parents, too. They related to her in a different way than you did as her brother and then guardian. She lacked love and he supplied it, albeit in the most basest, horrible of ways."

I shook my head. I certainly did not want to argue with my counselor, but I was having a hard time figuring out how anyone could put up with what George had done.

Ms. Berry added, more gently now, "G.G. had this secret and after the first time of not telling, the secret built upon itself and it became harder and harder to say anything. She had to justify to herself why she wasn't telling, why she let it continue. As disgusting as this is to consider, probably some of what he did to her felt good even if she didn't want any of it at first."

I felt like covering my ears when Ms. Berry continued, explaining, "A kiss, a touch can be pleasurable. While penetration at an early age would surely hurt, we don't know that occurred with them when she was prepubescent. Some predators enjoy their victims' pain, others like to manipulate, to make the victim think the way the predator does, to seduce and win his victim over. I suspect that George is of that type. He wants her to feel desire, to justify his actions by showing how she reacts to him."

What Ms. Berry was saying made sense, but thinking about it at all soured my stomach, made me feel sick. How any man could look at a child with desire was something that I could never understand.

"Perhaps what happened at first, you understand this is pure speculation of course, was just George holding her, his hands rubbing her back, nothing overtly sexual, just loving."

I could imagine that, and gave a curt nod.

"Then he slowly built upon it until she was in the middle of it before she knew it had begun. Likely she wanted to please him, to keep his attention, have his praise, be told that she was the object of his desire and love."

Ms. Berry paused and I asked, "Do you think that was really how it was?" I could half imagine it, even though it was twisted, dark, evil, the height of manipulation.

"We cannot know for sure," she responded. "This is only a theory, perhaps only a hypothesis. But I have received training that comports with my experience, that when victims feel desire or pleasure from what their perpetrators do, things get all messed up in the victim's head. Victims question whether they aren't asking for it, in fact deserve it, when sexual desire occurs in conjunction with the abuse. People don't like to talk about the fact that horrible things being done to a person can sometimes feel good. Our bodies and our brains are not always united."

"Yes, that's true," I responded, almost against my will. My mind had shifted from thinking of what had been done to G.G. to the memory of what Caroline had done to me. "I understand what you are saying, can we leave off talking about G.G. and George for now? There is something else that has been troubling me, that has nothing to do with G.G."

"Of course," Ms. Berry nodded and straightened her suit coat. It was a peach color and brought warmth to her dark skin. She didn't seem particularly comfortable in it, but had told me that she was in court today, which was why she had dressed up.

Before I could lose my courage, I told Ms. Berry, "I had something happen to me during the fall, something I didn't want, but my head has been all messed up about it ever since. The only person I have told about it was my cousin Rick. He's the one that said I should get counseling, which led to me seeking you out. I want to tell you, I need to tell you, but at the same time it is the scariest thing in the world to tell you. I don't even know where to begin. I always feel so stupid and guilty and ashamed all wrapped up into one."

"Bill, this is a safe place," Ms. Berry told me, squeezing my hand for a moment. By now we had progressed from sitting far away from one another to me sitting in a side chair and her sitting on the seat in the corner of the blue couch immediately perpendicular and to the right of me.

I stared at the coffee table for a few moments, noted the note pad, turned toward her and not me, and how there were three pens, all white ballpoint tubes with separate caps, one red, one blue and one green, to indicate which color they wrote in. The notepad was a medium-sized lined one with spiral binding at the top. It was flipped open, with previous pages either behind or ripped off. I could see indentations left by someone who had pressed hard on a previous page, but could not make out whatever had been written from that.

The ballpoint pen with a green cap had been nibbled, really chewed, into a distorted mess by some anxious client. I could related to that client's need to soothe himself? herself? by whatever means necessary.

Before I could turn the subject to something else and chicken out, I said all in a rush, "You see, this one evening a woman that's the sister of a friend of mine took it upon herself to get me home after I became drunk at a bar. I am talking really drunk."

I looked up to gauge her reaction then. Although Ms. Berry's face was bland, I felt a shade of judgment in her eyes. I had this fear she thought I was going to talk about raping Caroline. Even to me, the person who went through the experience, isn't that the tale I would be expecting over hearing about what Caroline did to me?

Unable to look Ms. Berry in the eye any longer, I focused my gaze back on the mutilated pen, but I wasn't really seeing the pen, I was seeing again what happened that night. "I should clarify, this woman, Caroline, has had a thing for me for years but I've never had any interest in her in that way. I was having a bad evening, having just heard that G.G. tried to run away, and I wanted to drink. I wanted to forget."

I paused, waiting for Ms. Berry to say something. When she didn't, I began to talk again.

"At the time, it seemed like Caroline was just trying to help me. She bought me a whole bunch of drinks. I don't drink much, I usually value my control. Anyway, I had at least six drinks and then she decided she was driving me home. I was staying with my friend, her brother, at the time. When we got to the house, she put me to bed. While I think most people would have done little else except perhaps remove my shoes, she decided to help me undress when I couldn't do it. I let her. Like I said, I was really drunk."

"Mmm, huh," Ms. Berry murmured, encouraging me to continue. Otherwise she was so silent that I would not have known she was still there, save for the fact that there was no sound to indicate she had left, no breeze caused by her movement. The room was quiet but for the soft puff of the defuser, with its gentle lavender scent, a scent whose purpose was to soothe. It was having no effect on me that I could tell.

I picked up the damaged pen, twirled it around and around my fingers in the manner I had perfected as a boy, when other boys were impressed by things like that, before we discovered girls. Normally I would have selected one of the undamaged pens, but on this occasion the chewed one called to me. I did not have to look at the pen to rotate it around my fingers, but I stared at it anyway, watched it whirl and spin. It helped a little.

My voice sounded far away to me, as if it was coming from someone in another room as I explained, "Caroline started to touch me in a sexual way, took off my briefs without me saying she could. She told me that it didn't have to mean anything."

I paused, took a deep breath and spun the pen. "I didn't resist, but I didn't encourage either. Everything was so confused in my head and, well, this part is even more awkward and embarrassing to tell . . ." I was spinning the pen through my fingers far faster now, as fast as I could without dropping it, my fingers aching with the sudden exertion to which they were no longer accustomed.

"I am sure I have heard worse," she told me. I chanced a quick look at Ms. Berry, which wasn't enough for me to tell anything but that she was looking at me intently. I was scared to look at her longer than that, to see judgment, condemnation or something worse in her expression.

I continued. "Caroline sucked me. I didn't really want her to, but at the same time it felt good. Then she got naked and pushed me back on the bed."

The pen suddenly slipped (or perhaps I pushed it with too hard of a movement) from my fingers, careening end over end, pinging on the coffee table and continuing to bounce (almost like a skipping rock), three more times until it hit the wall, dropped and rolled, and settled down half-hidden in the pile of the carpet. I pondered getting up and retrieving it. Instead I picked up the other two pens and began to drum with them against the edge of the coffee table. I had to; I needed to do something while I sat.

As I drummed in a quick syncopated rhythm to some half remembered song, I finally began to speak once more. My voice didn't sound so far away from me now. "This sounds so strange even as I say it, but basically I was an object and she was doing things to me. Caroline moved my hand to where she wanted to be touched (I hardly touched her at all that I recall, it felt awkward and weird, she's my friend's sister after all). What she was doing to me felt good, but I didn't want to have sex with her, but I didn't tell her 'no' or 'stop.' I was very confused, saying ridiculous things and laughing about them. She tried to climb on top of me, but I turned to the side. I told her we had to use a condom (my dad was big on condoms, drilled me about always, always using one from a very early age), but couldn't get it on myself. Caroline tried to talk me out of it and then put it on me herself. Then she climbed onto me and things just happened."

I kept drumming, with my right toe tapping along. I couldn't stop drumming even though I was getting tired.

I glanced back at Ms. Berry then, a quick flicker of my gaze before looking away, she remained quiet so I continued. "Afterwards, I wanted Caroline gone but I fell asleep before I could try to make her leave. Then I woke up to her touching me and almost immediately ran to the bathroom and vomited. I was really sick. She tried to get me to come back to the bed, but I was a little less drunk by then I guess, because I made her leave. The next morning she was telling me how much she loved me and that I should give us a chance."

I shook my head in confusion, as if I could clear it that way. My rhythm had slowed a bit by now. As Ms. Berry continued to be quiet, soon I was filling the quiet with my voice again.

"Honestly I am very confused about the whole thing. I am not a 'get drunk and have a one-night-stand' kind of person. I have only been with two women (well, before her), both of whom I was seriously dating at the time. I had told Caroline more than once that I just wasn't interested in her. I felt bad that it meant something to her and not me. I am just so mixed up about the whole thing. When I told my cousin Rick about it, well he says that she ra- well it can't be that, I don't see how it can be that. Yes, that can happen to a guy in prison or something, but with a woman? In the movies, no matter how a man ends up having sex, he is always 'getting lucky' 'cause a man is supposed to want that any way he can get it."

Although I knew I was rambling, I could not seem to stop. My drumming had slowed and I finally set the pens down against the side of the pad, but I could not still my hands. The fingers of my left hand plucked at my khaki slacks, while my right hand rubbed at the arm hair on my left forearm that was exposed by my rolled up sleeves.

"I've been having the most horrible dreams about it, with what George did to G.G. all mixed up with what Caroline did to me. Rick's wrong, right? It can't be that, right? I felt so guilty when I sobered up and Caroline told me how she felt about me and thought we could now be in a relationship. I didn't want anything to do with her. I felt I had treated her badly, took advantage of her feelings."

I felt my right fingers tug on a chunk of my arm hair then, cause a little pain. It helped ground me to the here and now, blot out a bit of everything else I was feeling as I let it all come out.

"But the more I think about it, the more I think she took advantage of me. In my head, even while I was drunk, I didn't want to do any of it, but my body had other ideas. When you were talking about George maybe making G.G. feel good even when it was wrong, well, that is sort of how I felt."

I felt driven to explain further even as my head was beginning to ache, my confusion causing me physical pain. "But things are so different in the two situations. I am a man, not a child, I outweigh Caroline by a ton and I am older than her. As an adult, am I not responsible for my actions even if I am intoxicated? If I didn't want it, why didn't I say anything or push her away? Maybe I really did want it, but then later had second thoughts? But that can't be right."

I hung my head and cradled it with my hands before my fingers slid into my scalp and tugged on my hair. I swept my fingers through my hair and then forced my head up. I stared at the far wall and forced my hands to rest in my lap. My fingers ached to be doing something and my hands closed into tight fists, my short nails pressing into my palms, not enough to puncture, but enough to leave indentations.

"What the heck happened to me," I asked both Ms. Berry and myself, "and why can't I just let it go? Nothing has really changed, but it has at the same time, too. I keep thinking, what if she does it to someone else, but that isn't really my responsibility, is it? I wish I could forget that it ever happened at all."

Finally I fell silent. I was waiting for some judgment on Ms. Berry's part, or some kind of comment. By now my head throbbed and I felt mildly sick to my stomach.

After what seemed an interminable amount of time, but was likely of less than thirty seconds of duration, Ms. Berry told me, in a gentle voice, "This is a safe place to share and you've shared quite a bit today. I am glad you felt you could trust me with it. There isn't any judgment here."

I let out a deep breath I hadn't known I was holding while waiting for her response and forced myself to sit up straight. I felt faint and panicked at the same time. I tried to breathe deep and slow. It was hard to do. My body felt tight as if all my muscles were tense. My head still throbbed and my stomach felt at sea, my nails pressed harder and harder into my palms. Still, I was waiting to hear what else she would say. I wasn't brave enough to actually look her in the face.

"It sounds like you've been through quite a trauma, Bill. I don't think the word for it all that important right now. It may be important later, but for now I want to support you. You obviously have some very powerful feelings about what occurred and I want to help you work through them at your own pace. Let's start with your question about your responsibility for actions you took or didn't take while intoxicated."

I nodded, wanting to encourage her to continue, but not wanting to say anything else just then.

"We know that people act differently when they are intoxicated. One of the first things to go is their judgment and higher reasoning. The more intoxicated a person gets, the harder it is for that person to evaluate their situation and respond appropriately to it. Response time will become slower and slower. At extreme levels of intoxication, people lose the ability to talk, walk and reason at all. They may lose control of their bowels and eventually will fall unconscious, but their autonomic functions, that are located in the brain stem will continue to function, their lungs to breathe, their hearts to beat. If the intoxication is severe enough, however, even these functions will be depressed and then eventually fail."

I nodded again. I was familiar with what she was talking about. I felt my body start to relax a little, my fists to unclench, my breathing to ease, although my head still throbbed.

Ms. Berry asked me, "Would it be appropriate for someone to have sex with another person while the first person was unconscious?"

"No," I responded, finally chancing to look at her again. I saw to my relief that her face was bland, her eyes perhaps a bit wider than normal, but still kind.

"Why not," Ms. Berry asked.

"Because that person could not consent. But I don't see why we are talking about that; I wasn't unconscious."

"I am just establishing some parameters for a discussion that will likely take us several sessions to cover in full. Now let's take the opposite situation. Can a person who is an adult normally consent to sex?"

"Yes," I responded.

"What about if the person has a lower I.Q.? What then?"

"I suppose it would depend upon how low, whether the person could make informed decisions." She nodded in acknowledgment.

"Now what if the person has schizophrenia and is in the middle of an episode?"

I thought it through, "You mean hearing voices and seeing things that aren't there? Like in the movie A Beautiful Mind or in those commercials where the two pretty girls are talking about their schizophrenia and that great new medicine?"

"Sure," Ms. Berry smiled a little.

"If it kept the person from understanding what he or she was doing, I don't see that consent would be valid." The questions she was asking were easy, ones that anyone could have answered. It was reassuring to get the answers right.

"What if that person seemed rational to the other person involved and the other person really did not know." Ms. Berry asked. Now that was a harder question.

I considered this question carefully. I knew all these questions were to help me put my own situation in a larger context. It was certainly easier to talk about hypothetical situations than what had happened to me. I was pretty sure she was trying to engage my more rational mind to put me at ease.

"Well, if the other person truly did not know, had no reason to suspect, it would still be wrong but the other person would not be culpable."

"Now one final question, as our time is almost up, and then I will give you some homework for next week. Please be honest with me about this, because it will be important as to how we proceed. Do not give me the answer you might think I want to hear; that would not be helpful to the process. Do you feel that men and women are truly equal?"

The right thing to say was just "yes" but I wanted to be a little more nuanced than that. This was an issue I had thought about before. Additionally, the more I engaged in a cerebral, theoretical discussion, the more at peace I became. I welcomed talking about other things.

"Yes, I do. Men and women are equally valuable, equally intelligent, equally capable. But that does not mean we are the same. Our bodies and hormones and brains are different. Men tend to be bigger, stronger, faster. I have heard that women have better developed verbal abilities, have more emotional intelligence and in general they seem more nurturing and intuitive to me. Women live longer, are less prone to certain defects, such as color blindness."

I was warming to the subject now. "But all these things are just to a degree, individual men and women may be superior to one another in ways that on average their gender may not be. One particular woman may be stronger than a particular man, one particular man may be much more nurturing than a particular woman. But the fact that we are different, does not mean one is lesser, subservient to the other. Physiology has an influence and so does the culture in which we are raised; the natural strength of men the fact that for millennia women have been defined by their role in the reproduction of the species and how that makes them vulnerable, dependent and subject to exploitation. Back when we were hunter-gatherers, indeed far longer than that, mothers had to be guarded, protected, provided for while pregnant and when caring for young, nursing children. It was women alone who bore the reproductive consequences of sex before there was birth control. This difference more than any other I believe to have been responsible for the difference in which men and women were viewed."

I continued, "It seems to me that women should not have to try to be exactly like men to be seen as their equals. We ought to celebrate the fullness that is humanity, male and female."

I laced my fingers together and then rotated my shoulders, swiveling my forearms out, pulling my fingers apart; then I reversed the movement, interlacing them again. I did this slowly, meditatively.

"I shouldn't be entitled to anything more than my sister because I am a man and she is a woman. G.G. should not have to try to be just like a man to deserve equal respect. She ought to be able to determine for herself what choices in life make her happy, well once she starts thinking more rationally and actually is an adult." Perhaps G.G. was not the best example.

I moved back towards the general, lowering my combined hands to my lap. "I have heard it said that a woman with an advanced degree has wasted her life if she chooses to focus on her children instead of her career, but that should be her choice, just as it might be the choice of a well-educated man to be a stay-at-home dad if that is what he and his wife agree upon. Neither of them owe anything to the others of their gender, to be the right sort of achiever. The same rights, opportunities, responsibilities, respect and options ought to apply to both."

"So do you think they do not?" Ms. Berry probed. I was mostly looking at her now, engaging with her as I might with any other person over an interesting topic of conversation.

"Society is not perfect. Women are not always valued as they should be although things are better than they were. I can see how in wanting to protect women, one could oppress them. It was not too long ago that the assumption was that women were less than men. But I don't believe it."

"So carry that to its natural end, Bill." Ms. Berry instructed me. "If women are the equal of men (albeit with certain differences), can they not be capable of every evil that men can?"

I didn't answer. I thought of all the dictators, of all the serial killers. I couldn't think of any women among their numbers. Were they all men because men had more intrinsic evil, or did they simply have better opportunities?

"Go ahead and take time this week to think about that," Ms. Berry instructed. "Perhaps do a little research into the crimes that women have committed. See what you can discover."

The week passed and when I came in for my next session, after asking about my week and discussing some other preliminary things, Ms. Berry asked me, "Do you have an answer for me yet?"

I responded, "Women can be responsible for every evil, just as men, but for some evils men predominate and for others women do. I read about that woman teacher who had sex with her elementary student and ended up having two children by him. There was a movie made about her and everything. She was a predator. He was way too young to consent. But he thought he was in love, maybe like G.G. thinks that she's in love with George. But it is wrong."