High Priestess

5.8

October 10, 1980

Stevie felt like crying. They had moved from their 'private' beach house into a gorgeous mansion in the Pacific Palisades with a green mural on the staircase and she had given in to couples counseling but what she wasn't expect was for the words, 'you need to separate' that just came out of the counselor's mouth. 

"Dr. Green, what do you mean?" Lindsey asks.

"I mean. That Stevie hasn't had a chance to live by herself. She went from one marriage right to the other and she never got a chance to experience being a single woman again. I'm not saying that you need to get divorced. I'm saying that you just need to stay in separate houses for a while. I would suggest that the sweet little girl sitting on your lap, Mr. Buckingham,  playing with her bunny needs to solely stay with Stevie as her routine consists of going to work with Stevie and you can't mess a 2-year-olds routine up because that can disrupt her developmental growth she could regress on a lot of things." Dr. Green explains. 

"I know who I can stay with." Lindsey sighs.

"Who?" Stevie asks.

"Ray, he'll let me crash on his couch." Lindsey nods.

"Wonderful. Did you two drive here separately?" Dr. Green questions.

"We did I came from work why?" Stevie inquires still fighting back the tears. 

"Because Mr. Buckingham is going to take her home and pack his stuff. Mrs. Buckingham, I'm requesting that you stay here for another hour." Dr. Green looks at his watch.

"Why?" Stevie asks.

"Because you have PTSD from your time at Crossley and your Divorce and the only way that we're going to help you save your marriage is if you and I have separate counseling sessions that aren't related to your marriage." The doctor explains.

"I can agree with that." Lindsey nods.

"I guess I don't have a choice, do I? But I don't necessarily like that you two are ganging up on me." She crosses her arms.

"I'm just saying that we can't have sex. We've been married for two years and we haven't had sex. And every time we even try to get close to it you push me off of you or you have a panic attack. I'm simply agreeing that you have PTSD." Lindsey tells her. 

Once Lindsey leaves the doctor looks at Stevie.

"So I guess that's the best place to start." He states.

"What?" 

"You and your husband can't have sex but see that intrigues me because you have a toddler so I know that you two have had sex at one point." He states.

"I don't wanna talk about it." She looks down blushing in embarrassment. 

"The only way to move on from old Trauma is to talk about it." He states.

"I use Malachite for that." She shrugs.

"Malachite?" 

"It's a crystal that helps you move past old trauma when it's near you." She states.

"So when you and Lindsey go to have sex is it near you?" 

"Always, It's placed under the mattress on my side of the bed." She tells him.

"So it's obviously not working. It helped your soul get over old trauma but it hasn't let your mind and your body get over it. So tell me what happened?" 

"When I was at Crossley...I um. I was raped." She bites her lip and looks down.

"By a patient, a doctor, a nurse?" 

She hesitates for a moment before telling a blatant lie because she knows if she tells the truth he's going to go after Joe Walsh and she's kept in touch with him. When he got out of rehab he moved back to Colorado and got his old job back and last she knew his wife was having another baby and she didn't want to disrupt that. "A patient. I was...I was allowed to have things from home. So my then-husband packed my purse and some candles and a lighter for the candles. I wasn't there because of self-harm or anything so they let me have the light with me. I had pillar candles. And I had been sedated as one is when they get an electric shock treatment, and I couldn't move. I couldn't fight against him. He knew that so he figured out how to put the stirrups on the bed because it's a hospital, every room is equipped with medical equipment the bottom drawer under my sink had a label, stirrups. speculum, so on and so forth." 

She stops and takes a breath. The whole first part of the story she was telling wasn't true but she was about to get into the true part and she didn't necessarily want to tell it but she knew she was going to be forced to. "He had put my legs in the stirrups, strapped my hands and feet down, not that it would do me any good as I couldn't move them and when they were in the stirrups it felt so weird and uncomfortable because they were so heavy and it felt like my muscles were straining. He lit the candle let it burn for a while as he fingered me and then he stuffed a cloth in my mouth. He dripped the hot wax right on my genitals. Then once he was satisfied with that he blew the candle out and, I make candles so I know that when the wick is freshly burnt it's really hot, about like a hundred degrees hot and he shoved the pillar candle inside of me and he mimicked sex with it until he had enough. I don't think I was reacting how he wanted me to because I couldn't move and screaming wouldn't have done any good so I didn't fight him." 

She wipes tears out of her eyes and then she continues. "And it's not like Lindsey and I can't have sex. We can have oral sex. I haven't given him a blow job or a hand job but he's...he's eaten me but as soon as he goes to finger me or even worse, put his penis in me I just I go back to the stupid candle and I freak out and I do what I couldn't do to the guy at Crossley I fight him. And my brain knows it's Lindsey, I can see that it's Lindsey but I just fight him." She explains.

"It's a logical response to Rape. You just need to separate yourself from Crossley, if you and Lindsey go to have sex-not any time soon because of the separation, but when you and Lindsey do go to have sex have your brain focus. Tell it that you're at home, this is your bed, your sheets, your comforter that's your husband the man you love the man you have a family with." The doctor states.

"But how when we're separated?" 

"You'll know when the time is right." He assures.