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.“Uh.God,” he grunted.“Keep reading,” Randall commanded.Tim shot him a wary glance.“Please tell me what this has to do with anything,” he said.But his eyes had returned to the paper in front of him, like a motorist unable to look away from a roadside accident.“What the hell was it doing in Eric’s house?”Tim just shook his head, reading silently for a second.He sat forward suddenly, staring down at the paper as if the text had blurred.“What?” Randall asked sharply.“I do not hate my uncle,” Tim read.“I believe he Was diseased.And such a diseased man usually ends up infecting others.By the time I came to Atherton, I believed I had come to terms with what he had done to me.Then I met Jesse Lowry.”Randall froze, standing over Tim.After a moment, he removed the essay from Tim’s hands.“Jesus.If she slept with Jesse no wonder she got tested for every STD under the sun,” Tim said.“Jesse uses condoms,” Randall told him.Tim arched his eyebrows.“I’ve seen the box,” Randall added.“I thought you might be working double—Sorry, make that triple time.” Tim crossed to his fridge and pulled out a beer.Randall sank down onto the bed, reading;“Randall, maybe you shouldn’t be.”Randall ignored him, and Tim drank from his beer.After arriving at Atherton, Lauren Raines had found it almost impossible to sleep, plagued as she was by nightmares.She went to a guidance counselor seeking prescription sleeping pills.But the counselors at the health center weren’t even licensed to give out aspirin and were reluctant to make referrals, believing most student problems had to do with too much raw independence, too much stress, or just too much drinking.But the counselor was a “sweet guy” and after several sessions, Lauren told him about her molestation.Further sessions were devoted to coming up with ways to exorcise her memories.According to the counselor, whom Lauren didn’t name, the more she tried to repress the memories, the more likely they would spring up when she tried to sleep.Randall thought the counselor’s final solution was insane.He continued reading with increasing disbelief.One of my favorite classes is Workshop in Creative Writing I.It is also one of the hardest.Everyone is very tough on each other’s work.Most students don’t like reading aloud.Me included.But I believed that by placing my story in a fictional context and forcing myself to read it aloud to the entire class, I would experience what my counselor called a catharsis.The story was called “Hands,” and Lauren worked on it for weeks, altering all the major details.“Hands” was a success, but she speculated on whether or not the story’s subject prevented the other students from hissing their usual poison.The story’s reading was followed by a sober class discussion on the nature of molestation.Lauren noted that the class’s conclusion was the same as her own: while molestation was essentially about manipulation and control, the real sin inflicted upon the child involved was the period of disillusion during which the child believes that the actions of their molester are a new and valid form of showing love.One student didn’t contribute to the discussion.Jesse Lowry.At first, Lauren thought the guy was silently revolted by the proceedings, but as soon as the class let out, Jesse approached her, showering her with praise.By the time he asked her out to dinner, Lauren had convinced herself that her reward for facing her demons was the sudden attentions of the strikingly handsome classmate she had secretly been ogling for weeks.As self-conscious as Lauren’s essay was, even she went into a kind of swoon when she described Jesse, with his “proportioned athletic body in which every muscle moved in fluid union” and “All-American good looks with a flash of boyish playfulness lighting up his smile and his perceptive eyes.”“Give me a fucking break,” Randall muttered.“Huh?” Tim asked.“Nothing,” Randall answered and continued reading.Lauren’s opinion of Jesse was unchanged after their first date.Jesse was charming, honest, and most important, didn’t make a move after dinner.This struck Randall as especially odd; he didn’t remember Jesse going on a single date.Usually, he either didn’t need to, or didn’t care enough to devote even that amount of time to a potential sexual conquest.To Randall, Jesse had only mentioned Lauren in passing, as he had the many girls who stumbled out of their room in various states of undress.I decided I was ready to make love to him.I was the one who took the initiative.After making sure my roommate would be out for the evening, I invited him up to my room.I wasn’t exactly subtle about it, but that didn’t seem to be a problem.He started performing oral sex on me.He was very good at it.Lauren’s cold frankness in describing the sexual act drove home the fact that Randall was eavesdropping on a private pain.But a potent blend of horror and curiosity drove him to keep reading.He hoped it wasn’t the voyeuristic pleasure of hearing what Jesse was actually like in bed.“Are you done yet?” Tim asked.Randall shook his head.“In a second.”I’ve never been so ready for someone to enter me before.He was gentle, he was affectionate, and as soon as he was inside me he whispered in my ear, “Just like your uncle, Lauren.” I experienced an immediate orgasm I could not prevent.“Jesus!” Randall tossed the essay aside and rose from the bed.Tim shot out of his desk chair and retrieved the essay off the bed.It took him a few minutes to finish, and when he did, he dropped it to his lap and looked to Randall, who was staring out the window.“How well do you really know Jesse?”“I’m starting to think Kathryn might know him better.”“Huh?”“She wouldn’t be surprised by a single word of this.She’s always thought Jesse was some kind of.predator.I always thought he was just a big hornball and that she was just attracted to him and had to take out her frustrations on him, but that’s not it.She always sensed that he was using his body, using how attractive he is to.undo people.”“Very Dynasty,” Tim commented wryly.Randall ignored him.“It’s almost like Jesse thinks the only honest thing in his life is his body and the pleasure it can give him.And he’s always trying to convince everyone else.I can see him.I can hear him saying that to Lauren.And believing it.”“I repeat,” Tim said, retrieving his beer off his desk.“It has nothing to do with what we’re looking for.”“What was it doing in Eric’s house?”“You said you thought Mitchell Seaver dropped it off.Maybe he left it with the paper he hadn’t graded by mistake.Maybe Lauren is friends with him.I don’t know, Randall, but you asked me to help find out if he killed his wife, and this shit is not helping.” Tim took a slug of beer.“Better luck next time.” \“I have the bottle,” Randall said, turning from the window.Tim nodded.“That’s a start.”“Maybe.We can’t exactly take it to the medical examiner’s office and ask them to run a few tests without telling anyone except us what they find.”“I could take it to Richard.He’s covered the police beat here for twenty years.Maybe he’ll know some doctor who can run tests or something.”“That’s ridiculous, Tim.He’s a reporter.You don’t think he’s going to want to know why you’re bringing it to him?”“Look, we’re fairly limited in what we can do here, all right? Now unless you think you can dig around the house again and find some diary or something, then you might start considering my suggestions.”“I’ve got a suggestion of my own,” Randall said.“Her sister.”“What about her?”“Lisa was spending every weekend with her.I’ll bet she wasn’t bothering to pack a suitcase.Anything she wanted to keep from her husband, she would keep there.”“The woman’s got cancer, Randall [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]