Body Language

Body Language

Copyright 2014 Dahlia Salvatore

All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Original song-writers and performers of songs mentioned in this book retain rights to their work and no copyright infringement is meant by the use of any related material. For credits for all songs mentioned in this book, refer to the song list in the back of the book.

Cover and formatting by ShoutLines Design.

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords ISBN 9781311895264

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

About the Author

Chapter 1

Carmen

Don't come back. I can't take it again. I can't take your hands on me. I can't take your strange words and your coddling, your crying. I can't take the quick march of my heart as it waits for its last beat.

He has me strapped to a table, my arms and legs restrained. I've been there for what feels like days, without food, drink, or a chance to wash the filth from my body. I feel sure I'm going to die. I'm exhausted, starved, racked with fear. In a daze, I close my eyes, hearing the shudder of my own breath rattling in my lungs. A hybrid-state of sleep and insensibility settles over me like a veil drawn tight over my face. How many hours has it been? I remember walking out of the theater following the show, but after that it's all a blur. Why has he taken me? Why choose to kill me? In the haze, my mind travels back to years before, and a distant memory is reborn into my thoughts.

In the midst of the ache, the hopelessness, I remember the moment I decided to dance.

I was ten-years-old, lodged firmly in the most impressionable years of life, when one perpetually looks through rose-colored glasses. Life stretched out before me. I still believed I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up. I sat with my mother in the theater box. The crowd hushed and finally settled as everyone took their seats. The house was packed for a traveling company performing Swan Lake.

Tantalizing enough were the opening dances. Act one was the colorful celebration I would come to know well. But then, in Act two, the strong light faded to a blue pallor as Odette, the Swan Princess appeared, her body bending impossibly in several directions. Her arms lifted and fell, mimicking wings. I was breathless as I felt the beauty in the dance possess me, as it commanded my heart to beat in time with the orchestra. I knew I could—I should be her. I should wear the feathered tutu with that silver crown in my dark hair. I knew it was my destiny to possess others, to so thoroughly rob them of breath as I had been; to inspire in them fevered dreams.

As I lay waiting for the end, I can say my dream has come true, that my hours practicing at the barre, in front of the mirror in the dimly lit community studio, were well-spent. I've been Odette many times, experienced the thrill of hearing the sharp inhalation of breath as I flutter just out of Prince Siegfried's touch. Every movement was graceful, captivating. But the proof didn't come from the applause, the bouquets of flowers, or even the fan-mail. The greatest and most terrifying proof I've ever received is in the pleading, cold violet eyes of my captor as he looks down on me.

For many hours, I've been gagged. When he removes the acrid cloth from my mouth, my lips tremble. A long, thin knife appears from the darkness. He strokes my forehead lovingly. All I can do is sweat and cry. I know I'm going to die. I only wish now that it won't hurt, that the crisis will happen quickly. Maybe my heart will give out before he can stab me to death, but I am not that fortunate. Instead, he pries my lips apart and slides a knife into my between them. The steel fills my mouth, the point pushing painfully into the back of my throat. I can taste blood.

Again, he strokes me lovingly, the madman that watched the Swan Princess float across the lake of light for sixteen consecutive performances, the secret stalker she was never clever enough to hear skulking in the shadows behind her for four months. Now, the shadow has taken her and will keep her forever.

Another hour strikes. Two, three, four knives. By this time, I'm paralyzed with fear. I've drunk enough of my own blood to feel sick. I wish my heart would explode, that I could be yanked from my body by an angel. Five, six, seven knives find their way between my lips. I feel something snap in my stinging throat. There's so much blood and metal, that I can hardly breathe.

Suddenly, a light shatters the dark, and voices pile atop one another, angry male voices. My eyes close. Until I get to the hospital, I don't know that the knives have severely damaged my vocal cords, severed my uvula, and torn the interior of my tender cheeks. His care in placing the knives minimized the damage to the outside of my face, but every internal pain is acute—physical, mental, emotional. I never want to dance again. I never want to step into that soft light and be the Swan again. I can't possess, rob, or inspire. My wings have been clipped.

***

So, how does one pick up the pieces? How does one relearn how to look forward to tomorrow? Why do I still shut my eyes at night knowing that the nightmares will come, and the memories will rush in and out of focus, like some morbid flip-book?

At the time of the abduction, I was alone; and I don't just mean physically. I was mentally isolated, too. My parents are both gone, killed in a car crash two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I have an aunt in London, and we do trade emails sometimes, but not as often as one might expect.

I live, eat, and practice alone. It's no wonder the devil was able to take me. I was easy pickings. As a dancer, I spend most of my time in the studio and in my own head. My job is to say nothing. Odette, Giselle, Aurora—ballet shuts their mouths, opens their eyes, and orders their feet to move.

Why not speak as soon as I was able? Why not yell at everybody? Why not raise awareness?

For a while, it was easy and necessary to stay quiet in order to heal. Doctors floated about me. Nurses brought bouquets from strangers. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women, merely players, Shakespeare once wrote. Being in the hospital afforded me the vision to not only know; but also to experience that.

Six months into the healing process, I hadn't said a word; not to my aunt, not to my doctors. I just watched their faces. I heard the nurses speak to me as they checked the progress my mouth and throat were making, but I remained silent. For all intents and purposes, I believed the life I knew was gone; the dancer I'd been was gone. Everything inside me that ever had the capacity to cry out, whether through my limbs or my voice, had all but entirely vanished.

Yes, I have been through the treatment and the surgeries, but I'm convinced that one cannot pack gauze into desire. One cannot sew shut a wound, torn through courage, when one has been tortured, broken; convinced so entirely that death might follow in the next moment, that it could steal the next breath.

***

Today is the anniversary of my abduction. It's also my twenty-third session with Dr. Claire Fishel. I've never said a word to her. What would be the point? I know she can't possibly understand what happened to me. It wouldn't make much of a difference if I tried to explain it to her.

I take the elevator up to her third-floor office. When I leave the elevator, the assistant looks up from his sandwich and sets it aside. He brushes the crumbs from his hands and smiles, his teeth full of lettuce. He is familiar with the routine.

Good afternoon, Ms. Andrews. You can go in. The doctor is waiting for you.

I enter the plush office. On her desk a Newton's Cradle ticks noisily. In the office chair, the middle-aged, brunette doctor is making notes in a case file.

Ah, there you are, Ms. Andrews. Please, sit down. I'll be with you in a moment.

I occupy the usual leather chair. I've spent hours sitting in it, listening to her ask me questions that I don't feel like answering. Something about today feels different, though. She's fixated on whatever she's doing and writes for ten more minutes. All the while, the Newton's Cradle is still going. My nerves are throbbing by the time she sets her pen down. I reach out and steady the spheres.

Sorry, she says, coming around the desk with a clipboard. It helps me stay focused. She lays the clipboard in her lap and slides a pencil out from behind the clamp. Poised to write, she starts with her normal line of questioning. How has your week been?

I shrug.

Average, I assume. After over twenty meetings, I still get small talk. Ms. Andrews I've been talking with a colleague of mine and we both agree that I can't do anything for you if you won't talk to me. We haven't made much progress during the past few months, and I think it would be good for you to seek alternate assessment and care.

I'm surprised. We've been in and out of weekly sessions for seven months, and she had seemed so determined to cure me.

I think you'd have better luck with Dr. Weller. He's a pathologist as well as a therapist. She writes something down, though I can't imagine what it could be. From underneath her top page, she slides a green slip and hands it to me. I am referring you to him. He's setting up his offices right now, so you won't be able to make an until at least next week. As far as I'm concerned, I would like to hear from you anytime you need to talk to someone. She heaves a sigh, her face a picture of frustration. If I can be honest with you, I feel a little lost.

I quirk an eyebrow. She doesn't miss the gesture.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I also love challenges. Her gold wristwatch jingles as she rubs her freckled forehead. I just can't keep talking to myself anymore, she concludes. Her fingers smooth the wrinkles in her tweed skirt.

I feel bad for her for the first time. I have been difficult. I'll readily admit that, but I never cared about being a notch on her professional totem. In the end, I knew she didn't really care about me as a person. Psychiatrists aren't allowed to get emotionally involved. Is that what I want? Involvement? I don't know. Maybe the reality is, I'm beyond saving, and no amount of involvement can fix me. Still, she looks disarmed. I rise from my seat, breaking the tension—at least for me. She sets her clipboard on the desk and stands quickly.

Good luck, she says. I shake her proffered hand. It's a strange way to end a relationship, with a handshake. All my life I've thought a handshake was the way you greeted someone or agreed to something. Am I agreeing to try again with someone else, a person who will eventually get tired of talking to himself, too? Perhaps, I'm agreeing that I need luck. Too bad I don’t believe in it.

Chapter 2

Jacob

A heavy box in my hand, I fumble with the keys to my new office. I should have come up and opened the door first. What was I thinking? I curse before I finally manage to get the key in the lock and open the door. I'm greeted by a dusty, octagonal room. The wainscoting is in need of a good polish, but it appears to be real wood. The rafters are exposed, one of the luxuries, I suppose, of working on the top floor. Still, I can't help but muse that this place is kind of a dump. Too bad I signed a lease for two years already.

My phone rings and I set the box in the center of the room, where my desk will go once it's delivered. The caller ID reads mom.

Hello?

There's my boy. How's it going?

I just got here. I look into the rafters.

How is it? Take any pictures yet? That's mom. She thrives on visuals.

It's all spider real-estate until I get it clean. This building is old. I tap my heel on the floorboards. I think it will look great when I'm done, though.

Good! Did you eat today?

I shake my head. I brought a sandwich.

I'm thirty-four and she still makes sure I'm eating. There's some commotion on the other side of the line.

Who's there with you?

Lisa, want to talk to her?

Before I can answer, the phone crackles. I just went apple-picking. I brought mom some fresh Libertys, says Lisa into the phone.

Oh nice, what will she do? Make pie?

I'm making a crumb cake! I hear mom say in the background.

There you have it. Lisa chuckles.

Every other weekend, she makes the drive from Portland to Coos Bay to visit my mom. It's no wonder that she's stopped at an orchard. My mom learned to bake from her mother. Everything that comes out of her oven is fantastic.

When are you coming back?

I'll probably stay overnight and drive back in the morning. I'll bring you some of the cake.

Sounds good. Anyway, I've got to go. Tell mom I'll take pictures with my phone and send them once everything is set up.

We say our goodbyes. I made it sound easy on the phone, but cleaning this place will not be a quick task. It's a good thing I've brought the right tools with me. I murder my toasted sandwich from the deli down the street. Now it's time to get to work. The heavy box is useless to me with a dirty room to tend to, so I use it as a door-stop.

I open the windows, letting the sun in. I'm glad I wore a sweatshirt and jeans instead of formal-wear. From my car, I bring in all the necessary cleaning implements, as well as my mp3-player docking station. I plug my phone in, setting it to the local classic rock station.

The Doobie Brothers sing about Black Water and the Mississippi moon. I'm a sucker for guitar work. I could listen all day long to the stories the guitar gods tell. Instead, I work to get the wainscoting clean. It takes a little over an hour and all the patience at my disposal, but soon the room smells like pine oil and everything is gleaming like new. I sweep, mop, and recondition the floor. It's real wood, so it takes special care to get it back to shining.

My dad, god rest his soul, would be proud. I remember stripping and refinishing the deck on the house with him a few years before he died. I smile at my progress. I smell like cabbage, but at least the room is starting to look fit for habitation. Once the floor is dry, I remember the rafters. Unhappy about dirtying my floor again, I sweep the spiders and webs down and stand on a step-ladder to spray the rafters with bug killer.

I sweep the room free of the excess debris. Five hours and several bruises later, I'm successful. The room is clean and ready for the furniture. I sprawl out on the floor and stare up at the ceiling. A cold breeze blows through the open window, while Eric Clapton plays in the background.

I could fall asleep like this, in my office. I can't help but take a special satisfaction in the fact that I've finished the long years of college, and now, I can say I'm a doctor. I can finally help people. My focus has always been on people with speech disorders; anything ranging from Dysarthria to Aphasia. As a pathologist, I more often diagnose and study than treat these conditions, but I aim to do it all with my new practice.