“Not at all.”

  “How is that possible?” She got a notepad from a drawer and plucked a pencil from a cup of them.

  “Compartmentalization, baby.”

  She smiled and leaned her hip against the counter with her pencil hovering over the paper. “Sure. All right. When did this start?”

  I took the pencil and pad away and put them aside. “You’re not doing an intake form on me.”

  “It helps me think if I write it down.”

  I gathered her in my arms and kissed her neck. “But it makes me uncomfortable. I only want to tell my wife.”

  She exhaled deeply in my arms. “When did it start?”

  “It started soon after you got back, but I think it’s been with me the whole time. Since the war. I brought it back from Iraq.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I let her go.

  “Could it be September eleventh?” she asked.

  I sat on the stool and faced her, letting our legs tangle between us. “I wasn’t exactly looking for it. So I don’t know.”

  “And what is it like, this Thing?”

  “It’s… inside things. I hear it in ambient noise and in the shadows.”

  “In your peripheral vision?”

  “No. Looking straight at it or not, it’s there. Sometimes there’s nothing to see, but I know it’s there.”

  “Hm. So it’s an it, not a who?”

  “It’s not a person, but it has a personality.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  I laughed a little at myself. “I know there’s no intake form, but man, it seems like there is.”

  “Please?” She ran her hands down my arms, giving her plea a warmth and need she wouldn’t have given a patient.

  “It’s nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “It’s a nice personality. Not charming or interesting. Compassionate. Gentle. Kindhearted. The only person in the world it hates is me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re mine. Every time you’re in the room, it gets stronger. Every time I think of you, it comes out a little more.” I pressed my lips together and breathed deeply. “It’s making me not want to think of you, and that’s unacceptable. Trying to keep away from you? I thought I could starve it out, but if I starve it out, I starve you out. I won’t let it do that to me.”

  I laid her palm on mine. Her nails were short and clean. Unpolished, yet delicate.

  “I stuff all my feelings away, because it feeds on them. You’d be sick to your stomach if you knew how easy it is for me to do that. It gets easier every day, and when I can’t anymore, I fuck you hard because it hates that. It hides so it doesn’t have to watch. Then there’s this spinning sensation, like my mind is being flipped and spun… then it’s gone until next time.”

  She put her hand on my face. I kissed her palm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You didn’t know you were marrying into this mess.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “I wouldn’t want to go through it with anyone else, but at the same time, I’m sorry it’s you. You deserve better.”

  “And you deserve the best, which is me.” She smiled and waggled her brows.

  I laughed but cut it off. She meant it to be funny, but I wasn’t ready to laugh about this.

  “Do you have to wait to hurt me? Wait until you’re all bottled up and stone-faced?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t tried it.”

  She slid off the stool. “Do you feel it now? The Thing? So close after you chased it away?”

  “It’s there but hiding. I can manage it.”

  “Hurt me now,” she said thickly.

  When I’d hurt her before, I was under the influence of whatever this sickness was. I could only see one path out, and it was through her pain. Any other time, it wouldn’t be right.

  “Greyson.” I ran my fingers along her throat, feeling the bend of her tendons under soft skin. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” She put her lips to my cheek. “Hurt me.”

  Her whisper turned my compassion into sex. I turned my mouth to her throat and bit it.

  “Harder.”

  I bit harder, sucking apples off her skin. She gasped. Her face tightened. She pushed my face into her throat, and I sucked and bit her, grabbing her by the waist, pulling skin between my teeth.

  She groaned, and I tasted blood. I pulled away. A red spot had formed inside deep, tooth-shaped indents. Her brown eyes were wide and her pupils were dilated.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She put her hand to her new wound. “Yeah, I’m… did it go away?”

  It had been faint before. I gave it my attention, feeling in the corners and behind the hiss of the water heater. “It’s there. Same as before.”

  “Maybe you have to be fucking me?”

  “It starts screaming and hiding before that. And I’d like to fuck you right now.” I put my hand up her shirt and found her nipple.

  The red marks on her neck were getting brighter and angrier as blood flowed to the site. Seeing the mark made my blood flow as well. I’d done that, and painfully. She was mine. I pinched her nipple, watching her suck in a breath. I twisted it, and her eyelids fluttered.

  Drawing my hands down her sides, I pushed her pants down. “Let me make you come.”

  Before she could answer, I got two fingers on her clit and her reply turned into a groan. I guided one hand to the stool behind her and the other to the counter. She locked her left elbow and curved her back, thrusting her hips toward me.

  “Would you stop if I said no?” I rotated my fingers on her nub, watching her try to maintain control over her questions. “While we’re doing it and you were hurting me? If I said stop, could you?”

  We were down to calling roughness and domination “it.” I doubted Greyson missed the way we glossed it over when we weren’t in the moment.

  “Probably.” I got two fingers into her, then drew them back over her clit so wet I barely had to touch it.

  “I need something… I’m so close… more definite.”

  Increasing the pressure, I brought her to the next level but reduced it to keep her on the edge. “I could.”

  “Then we should keep doing it.”

  “You like it.”

  “I do. I do. God, let me come.”

  Wiggling back under her shirt, I pinched her nipple again. This time, I made sure it hurt. Not for the Thing, which was too far away to perceive it, but because I couldn’t believe what she’d said until I tested it with a loving heart.

  But it was true. She threw her head back and rotated her hips against me. Her clit was bloated and tight with blood. The harder I pinched her nipple, the more the pain kept her from going over the edge into orgasm. She hovered in my hand, under my control with no more than a few fingers.

  “I’m going to let you come.”

  “Yes. Please.”

  I slowly increased the pressure on her clit, circling it with her rhythm until she arched her back, leaning on her left arm, stiffening over my hand. She let out an unh, then jerked away so forcefully her hair fell over her face. Her chest heaved.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, pushing the hair off her face.

  “My pleasure.” I sucked the end of a slick finger.

  She put her hands on my shoulders and pressed her body between my legs. “I have the rest of the morning off.”

  “I don’t.” I kissed her and stood. “So we’ll reconvene tonight.”

  “I’m going to call some people then.”

  “Okay.” I untangled myself from her and pushed the stools in.

  “Would you like a man or a woman?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Therapist.”

  “Whoa, there.”

  “You need to work with someone else. Another professional. I can’t manage your treatment.”

  I hadn’t regretted telling her until she suggested a stranger, but how could I be surprised? And how could I have avoided telling her? She was my wife and the target of my… whatever it was. Logically, I couldn’t have avoided this shitty situation. I knew it, but I didn’t have to like it.

  “No.”

  “Caden. Please.”

  “You want me, a surgeon, to tell someone about this and expect them to let me continue working?”

  “It’s not affecting your work.”

  “I need to work. So no.”

  “I won’t treat you. Period.” She crossed her arms. “I mean it. It’s not some arbitrary limit, because believe me, my instinct is to be your primary advocate. I’d step in front of anything for you. But I know, in the end, that won’t serve you.” She put her hands flat on my chest. “You’re everything to me. Everything. I’m too invested.”

  Looking down at her, parallel lines of straight hair filtering one brown eye, the strands caught in her dark lashes, I accepted her love. Her professionalism was fine, but when she said she was doing it for me, I believed her.

  “I don’t want to tell anyone else about this. Who’s not going to think I’m crazy?”

  “Anyone in the field.”

  “I’m not going on a hundred interviews.”

  “I’ll find you someone right away. It’ll be easy.”

  I kissed her temple. “All right.” I held her tight, resting my chin on her head.

  “We’re going to be all right,” she said. “I promise.”

  “So do I.”

  Chapter Three

  GREYSON - DECEMBER, 2006

  Most non-medicinal PTSD treatments focus on desensitizing the patient to the trauma itself. They relive it endless times via sensory stimulation or verbal recall, until it’s old news. The therapies can seem cruel, but the outcomes are consistently good.

  Caden wouldn’t take medication. You can educate a man out of his misinterpretations of data (these drugs do not effect one’s ability to perform surgery) but you cannot educate him out of his pride (tell that to the person on the table).

  As terrible patients went, he would be the absolute worst.

  “How did it go?” I asked from my desk one afternoon in early December. He’d called me after seeing another PTSD specialist.

  “Fine.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “I don’t know. I was only there fifteen minutes.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I was late. Anyway, he wants to identify a specific trauma. I don’t have a specific trauma.”

  “That may take work but—”

  “I have to go.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” He hung up.

  I stared at the plastic receiver as if that would keep us connected another moment, then I put it back in the cradle with a sigh.

  Since he’d told me about what he called the Thing three weeks earlier, I’d defined behaviors that had seemed free-floating before. In the days before the fundraiser, he’d been cold and emotionless. He was so detached and robotic in some ways, yet temperamental and snippy in others. After the dark banquet room, where he dominated my body so brutally I had to hide his bite mark for a week, he was back to almost normal. Not as normal as when I met him in Iraq, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset.

  As the weeks passed, he became more and more closed off. There had been three-plus weeks between the first rough encounter in the middle of the night and the banquet hall. I thought nothing of the timing except to note when he’d become alienated from his emotions.

  I was about to call the next therapist on my list when Jenn called.

  “I need a drink,” she said.

  I looked at my watch. It was five thirty already. “I’ve had seven sessions today and my brain is full.”

  “Meet you downstairs.”

  That was the mood I met Jenn in.

  That was how it began, really. Ronin and his classified secrets, breaking shit to fix it.

  Caden had paperwork and opted not to join Jenn and me. Good. I was frustrated with him even though it wasn’t his fault. Never get frustrated with the patient, even if he’s your husband, slowing down before we got to a dead end. I wanted to speed up and find out what that wall was really made of.

  I was relieved he didn’t want to come, and then guilty for wanting a reprieve from watching him go through the motions of life.

  Jenn pushed her glasses up her nose. She’d shaved her kinky black hair down to the skin, which made her features statuesque. She held up her beer glass. I clinked my wine.

  “To an empty brain,” she said.

  “Cheers.”

  The Wednesday crowd was subdued. The Wall Street douches had had a bad day apparently, and the art school kids huddled over pitchers of the cheap stuff.

  “So,” I said. “You know anyone who can see a vet about identifying a trauma?”

  “What about Warren?”

  “I need someone to ID the incident so we can do CPT with Warren or whomever.” Cognitive Processing Therapy was a simple reliving of the trauma, but if the patient wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, or was in denial that a trauma had occurred, that was a different kettle of fish.

  “Messy. What are the symptoms?”

  “Patient thinks he’s being watched.”

  “Oh, shit! I have to tell you something.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “This is apropos of nothing. Ronin’s working at Blackthorne Solutions.”

  I should have told her no right there. Should have said I didn’t want anything to do with his crazy bullshit.

  Instead, I raised my eyebrows and put on a face that said, “Tell me more.”

  “I got a test subject request from Aberdeen for symptoms relating to… check this out… a feeling of being watched.” She pinched her fingers together at her forehead and spread them out, letting them flutter as they moved away from her head.

  “And this leads to Ronin how?”

  “It was an old form and his name was still on it.”

  “So he was working on that when he left?”

  “I think so. Do you want the form?”

  “Maryland’s not an option.”

  “But Ronin’s here…” she singsonged. “You could see what he’s got going at Blackthorne.”

  “No.”

  I was too quick to deny. Blackthorne was a military contractor that took payment from governments and corporations. They sent security personnel into war zones, used mercenaries and special operators to manage power vacuums in small countries, and developed weapons for the Pentagon.

  I didn’t want the form, but if I really did have a patient like Caden, I’d get it.

  “I mean, maybe.” I changed my answer.

  “Let me know.”

  We moved to other topics. She asked how my proposal from Tina was coming. I asked about art therapy and the NEA. We didn’t talk about Blackthorne or my patient again, but I didn’t stop thinking about it. Even after I found someone for Caden and he got his ass on a couch for a session, I made sure I had an updated number for Ronin.

  Caden hadn’t wanted to meet Ronin for dinner. Hadn’t wanted to tell him a damn thing. Didn’t like him or trust him. But we were out of options, and he knew it.

  When we got home from Gotham, Caden silently helped me with my coat. His fists were tight and his eyes burned. His muscles were taut under his shirt, and he smelled of need. My body reacted by sending a flood of fluid from my mouth, which had gone utterly dry, to my crotch, which was suddenly dripping.

  “Greyson,” he said.

  He reached around me and flipped the deadbolt, then stepped away enough to frame the whole of my body in his sight. His eyes coursed over my edges and curves while he flexed his fingers.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  No answer.

  “Now? Is it the Thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” I started unbuttoning my blouse, helpless against the smile creeping across my face.

  “Say yes.” His fingers went from flex to fist over and over as if he was stopping himself from using them.

  “Yes.”

  I undid the second button but never got to the third before he ripped the shirt open, sending buttons flying. He pushed me against the wall, hand under my bra, squeezing my breast.

  He shoved his other hand under my skirt and found my wetness. “That’s right, baby.”

  I was pushed down onto my knees with my bra over my tits and my skirt half over my waist. He undid his jeans and pulled his cock out like a weapon. A drop glistened at the tip.

  Pushing the back of my head forward, he guided himself into my mouth. “Take all of it. And make it wet. You’re going to need it.”

  I opened my throat and let him fuck my mouth. Spit dripped from my lower lip. I groaned, vibrating for him when he was deep in me. He came down my throat and watched as I swallowed.

  Looking up at him, his still-erect cock in the foreground, I could tell we weren’t done. He was still half animal.

  I was getting better at knowing which man I was looking at.

  He stripped me down and we began in earnest.

  Chapter Four

  CADEN

  Blackthorne Solutions.

  The dark room was about six feet by six feet and painted black. I sat in a chair in the center, a clicker in each hand, keeping my eyes on the dot of light on the wall in front of me. To the right and left, in my peripheral vision, photos were projected in pairs at a faster and faster pace.

  RIGHT: A child in a pirate costume.

  LEFT: A child with a black eye.

  (click left)

  I answered as I was told, choosing the more violent image without forethought. The Thing didn’t have a say. But it wanted one. It had opinions, and I had to think around it before I clicked.

  RIGHT: Viet Cong shooting a man in the head.

  LEFT: A flower with drooping petals.

  (click right)

  It was always there now, starting as a whisper in the shadows and growing into a scream in the darkness every day, every hour, every breath.

  RIGHT: A dead fish on the shore.

  LEFT: A dog with cigarette burns in its eyes.