Free The Naked Face by Sidney Sheldon

was an expert. Judd had finally warned her that unless she behaved herself, he would send her to another doctor. Since then she had behaved reasonably well with him: studying him, trying to find his Achilles heel. An eminent English physican had sent Teri to him after a nasty international scandal at Antibes. A French gossip columnist had accused Teri of spending a weekend on the yacht of a famous Greek shipping magnate to whom she was engaged, and sleeping with his three brothers while the ship’s owner flew to Rome for a day on business. The story was quickly hushed up andthe columnist printed a retraction and was then quietly fired. In her first session with Judd, Teri had boasted that the story was true.
    “It’s wild,” she had said. “I need sex all the time. I can’t get enough of it.” She had rubbed her hands against her hips, sliding her skirt up, and looked at Judd innocently. “Do you know what I mean, honey?” she had asked.
    Since that first visit, Judd had found out a great deal about Teri. She had come from a small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania.
    “My father was a dumb Polack. He got his kicks getting drunk on boilermakers every Saturday night and beating the shit out of my old lady.”
    When she was thirteen, Teri had the body of a woman and the face of an angel. She learned that she could earn nickels by going to the back of the coal tips with the miners. The day her father had found out, he had come into their small cabin screaming incoherently in Polish, and had thrown Teri’s mother out. He had locked the door, taken off his heavy belt, and begun beating Teri. When he was through, he had raped her.
    Judd had watched Teri as she lay there describing the scene, her face empty of any emotion.
    “That was the last time I saw my father or mother.”
    “You ran away,” Judd said.
    Teri twisted around on the couch in surprise. “What?”
    “After your father raped you—”
    “Ran away?” Teri said. She threw back her head and let out a whoop of laughter. “I liked it. It was my bitch of a mother who threw me out!”
    Now Judd switched on the tape recorder. “What would you like to talk about?” he asked.
    “Fucking,” she said. “Why don’t we psychoanalyze you and find out why you’re so straight?”
    He ignored it. “Why did you think Carol’s death might have something to do with a sexual attack?”
    “Because everything reminds me of sex, honey.” She squirmed and her skirt rode a little higher.
    “Pull your skirt down, Teri.”
    She gave him an innocent look. “Sorry…You missed a great birthday party Saturday night, Doc.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    She hesitated, an unaccustomed note of concern in her voice. “You won’t hate me?”
    “I’ve told you that you don’t need my approval. The only one whose approval you need is you. Right and wrong are the rules we make up ourselves so that we can play in the game with other people. Without rules, there can’t be a game. But never forget—the rules are artificial.”
    There was a silence. Then she spoke. “It was a swinging party. My husband hired a six-piece band.”
    He waited.
    She twisted around to look at him. “Are you sure you won’t lose respect for me?”
    “I want to help you. We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, but that does not signify that we have to continue doing them.”
    She studied him a moment, then lay back on the couch. “Did I ever tell you I suspected my husband, Harry, is impotent?”
    “Yes.” She talked of it constantly.
    “He hasn’t really done it to me since we’ve been married. He always has some goddam excuse… Well…” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “Well…Saturday night I fucked the band while Harry watched.” She began to cry.
    Judd handed her some kleenex and sat there, watching her.
    No one had ever given Teri Washburn anything in herlife that she had not been overcharged for. When she had first gone to Hollywood, she had landed a job as a waitress in a