Free Vision by Dean Koontz Page B

wicka-wicka-wicka ...
    She stood up, walked away from the chair.
    The wings held her.
    “What else did he want you to do?” Cauvel asked.
    “Something awful, unspeakable.”
    “A sex act of some sort?”
    Wicka-wicka-wicka ...
    “Not just sex. More than that,” she said.
    “What was it?”
    “Dirty. Filthy.”
    “In what way?”
    “Eyes watching me.”
    “Mitchell’s eyes?”
    “Not his.”
    “Who then?”
    “I can’t remember.”
    “You can.”
    Wicka-wicka ...
    “Wings,” she said.
    “Rings? You’re speaking too softly again.”
    “Wings,” she said. “Wings.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She was shaking, vibrating. She was afraid her legs would fail her. She returned to the armchair. “Wings. I can hear them flapping. I can feel them.”
    “You mean Mitchell kept a bird in the house?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “A parrot perhaps?”
    “I couldn’t say.”
    “Work at remembering it, Mary. Don’t let go of this thought. You’ve never mentioned wings before. It’s important.”
    “They were everywhere.”
    “The wings?”
    “All over me. Little wings.”
    “Think. What did he do to you?”
    She was silent a long while. The pressure began to ease a bit. The sound of wings faded.
    “Mary?”
    Finally she said, “That’s all. I can’t recall anything else.”
    “There is a way to unlock those memories,” he said.
    “Hypnosis,” she replied.
    “It works.”
    “I’m afraid to remember.”
    “You should be afraid not to remember.”
    “If I remember, I’ll die.”
    “That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”
    She pushed her hair back from her face. For his benefit, she forced a smile. “I don’t hear the wings now. I can’t feel them. We don’t need to talk about wings anymore.”
    “Of course we do.”
    “ I won’t talk about wings, dammit!” She shook her head violently. She was surprised and frightened by her own vehemence. “Not today anyway.”
    “All right,” Cauvel said. “I’ll accept that. That’s not the same thing as saying you don’t need to talk.” He began to polish his glasses once more. “Let’s go back to what you remember. Berton Mitchell beat you.”
    “I suppose he did.”
    “You were found in his place?”
    “In his living room.”
    “And you were badly beaten?”
    “Yes.”
    “And later you told them he did it.”
    “But I can’t remember it happening. I recall the pain, terrible pain. But only for an instant.”
    “You could have lost consciousness with the first blow.”
    “That’s what everyone said. He must have kept hitting me after I passed out. I couldn’t have stood up to him for long. I was just a little girl.”
    “He used a knife, too?”
    “I was cut all over.”
    “How long were you in the hospital?”
    “More than two weeks.”
    “How many stitches for the wounds?”
    “More than a hundred altogether.”
     
The beauty shop smelled of shampoo, cream rinse, and cologne. He could also smell the woman’s sweat.
    The floor was littered with hair. It swirled around them as he moved onto her and into her.
    She refused to respond to him. She neither welcomed him nor struggled against him. She lay still. Her eyes were like the eyes of the dead.
    He didn’t hate her for that. In the long run he’d never cared for passion in his women. For the first few months a new lover’s aggression and delight in sex was tolerable. He could be tender for a short time. But always, after a few months, he needed to see fear in them. That was what brought him to climax. The more they feared him, the better he liked them.
    As he lay on her, he could feel this woman’s heart thumping wildly, accelerated by terror. That excited him, and he began to move faster within her.
    “You took a number of Mitchell’s blows on your head,” Cauvel said.
    “My face was black and blue. My father called me his little patchwork doll.”
    “Did you suffer a concussion?”
    “I see where all of this is leading,” she said. “But no. No concussion.