Free Campaign for Love by Annabelle Stevens, Sorcha MacMurrough Page B

been
    seeing one man for years, and he's never even kissed me the way you
    have. I wanted to be like my other friends, normal, happy, but I
    couldn't."
     
     
"Again, why me?" he asked, stroking her back tenderly. "What's made
    me
    different?"
     
     
"I don't know. Maybe it was because you were attracted to me when I
    looked my worst. You weren't after my body."
     
     
Quentin's eyebrows shot up. "You mean other men were?" He sounded
    completely incredulous.
     
     
"All the time. That's really the big reason why I quit all those
    other
    jobs. You're right, I am a fraud."
     
     
Quentin whistled. "There definitely must be more there than meets
    the
    eye," he said thoughtfully as he tried to discern her figure under
    all
    the concealing fabric.
     
     
"But we'll go into that at another time. Right now, I think you'd
    better talk. Come on. You sit down on the couch. I'll bring my chair
    over. I don't trust myself on the same couch with you. And I trust
    you
    even less," he said sternly.
     
     
When they were both seated again at a safe distance from one
    another,
    he asked, "Now tell me, Suzanna, who or what turned a sensual
    creature
    like you off sex?"
     
     
"This will be difficult," began Suzanna, reclining against the
    cushions
    and trying to relax. "I've never discussed it. My best friends know
    only that there was some unpleasantness in my childhood, but I've
    never
    before told anyone the whole story."
     
     
"That's probably part of your problem," Quentin said wisely. "If you
    had talked it all out, you might have been freed of your problem
    years
    ago."
     
     
"It's not much of a story. When I was very small, my mother and her
    sister, my aunt, went shopping, first putting me to bed for a nap.
    They
    left my uncle to mind me. When I awoke from my nap, I felt something
    strange under my hand. I sat up in bed wondering where I was, then I
    looked to see where my hand had been. Asleep next to me on the bed
    was
    my uncle, completely naked.
     
     
"I had never seen a naked body other than my own before. I was
    terrified without even knowing why. I just seemed to know that I
    couldn't make a sound and that I'd be all right as long as he stayed
    asleep. The bed was against the wall, and he was barring my way on
    the
    outside. As stealthily as possible I crept toward the foot of the
    bed.
     
     
"It was brass, I still remember, and looked as high as a mountain to
    me. But I managed to get my leg over it and hanging on with both
    hands,
    I threw my other leg over, then climbed down on the cross bars. I
    stole
    out of the room and searched the house for my mother, crying quietly
    to
    myself. Of course, they hadn't returned. I remember putting my arms
    up
    on the kitchen table, putting my face against them to stifle my sobs
    and willing him not to wake up. He didn't. I was still sobbing when
    they came home and asked why I was crying.
     
     
"I just pointed to the bedroom. The last thing I remember is both of
    them going in, and nothing more but my mother saying, 'Don't tell
    Daddy.'
     
     
"She never mentioned the incident again, and of course I wouldn't
    either. Perhaps she thought I'd forget. But I didn't, and because
    she
    never talked about it I suppose I felt I had somehow been to blame.
    I
    wasn't much more than two years old."
     
     
"You poor baby!" he exclaimed. "No wonder you were traumatized. He
    must
    have been a real sicko."
     
     
"Yes, I suppose so, although he couldn't have touched me or I'm sure
    I'd have awakened. But he must have put my hand where I found it. I
    don't remember ever seeing him again. My aunt divorced him a couple
    of
    months later."
     
     
"Subconsciously, you must have begun to realize that nothing really
    happened to you. In these days of 'kiddie porn' when you can't pick
    up
    a paper without reading about some atrocity on mere babies, often by
    kids hardly more than babies themselves, you have to know that you
    were
    in no way responsible."
     
     
She nodded. "I know that