THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LOUIS AND ELLE.
Chapter 22.
You’re Thinking of a Brick Wall
On a lazy summer Friday night in the East Hills of the Tri-County area, Louis Wentworth and his wife, Elle Murphy, were sprawled on the living room floor wondering whether to watch TV or just drink wine and nibble on snacks.
“Elle, my beloved,” Louis said. “Listen to this poem: Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall ….:
Elle’s eyes narrowed. “That’s—Louis, what are you—”
“I hurry amain to reach the plain,” he intoned, looking at his wife intently, “Run the rapid and leap the fall—”
Elle opened her mouth, apparently to rebuke Louis, but found herself stifling a big yawn. “That’s . . . ‘Song of the . . . Whatsis’…right?”
Remorselessly, Louis recited, “Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide . . . .”
“Lou… is ….” Elle said, her eyes unfocused suddenly. “You’re trying to . . . hypno . . . tize me… you can’t hyp…”
“And flee from folly on every side,” he went on “With a lover’s pain to attain the plain … that’s it, darling, just relax and go into deep trance . . . now . . . .”
Elle’s eyes closed, her face relaxed, and her body slumped to the carpet, looking so heavy and comfortable that she might have been in the middle of a long night’s sleep. “Sleep, Elle, just let go of all your worries, like balloons rising up into the sky, let them go for now and follow my suggestions . . . .”
If Elle had retained any shred of normal consciousness at this point, she could have been forgiven for being surprised. Usually the hypnotist-subject relationship in the Wentworth-Murphy household ran the other way. Elle was an experienced hypnotherapist and a born dominant, Louis was a writer and her devoted submissive who would go under if she so much as pointed a finger at him. True, Louis had once managed to lull her into a trance,* and he’d taken the opportunity to persuade her to fulfill some fantasies from his teenage years. But after that event, she’d given him a stern talking-to; and then, because she knew she was susceptible to hypnosis, she had told him that if he had the impulse to try to hypnotize her, he’d find himself reciting “Song of the Chattahoochee” by Sidney Lanier—the most boring poem he had ever read.**
Except …. Once or twice she’d permitted her husband to guide her into trance again, as part of a process of recovering memories of her childhood and teenage years.*** She’d learned a lot from re-experiencing those times, and of course (though she hadn’t admitted this to Louis) she enjoyed the feeling of trance—the deep relaxation as her taut muscles turned to butter, the floaty feeling as her thoughts dissolved into wispy clouds, and, most secret of all, the delightful feeling of being a truly dominant person who got to hand over the controls, for a few minutes or hours, to someone else. She trusted Louis, and hypnosis—well, it it really did feel so good.
Louis was submissive and suggestible, but he was also smart; and while he had Elle under the last time, he’d turned her safeguard against her—planting deep in her subconscious the command that if in fact he did recite “Song of the Chattahoochee” she’d find it impossible to stay awake, but would return to deep trance.
Which is just where she was now, slumped fetchingly at her husband’s feet. “Elle,” he said, “you’re sleeping peacefully in deep hypnosis and you can answer any question I ask. Nod your head if you understand.”
Her head, nestled against her arm, gave the smallest of nods.
“Excellent,” he said. “Now tell me, are you enjoying being hypnotized?”
She nodded again, then, with some difficulty, said, “But . . . but . . . .”
“Yes, sweetheart, you can answer anything you like.”
“But don’t … turn me into a pinup girl again ….”
He flushed slightly, partly from embarrassment that he’d had such a juvenile fantasy and partly at the memory of how sexy it had been to see Elle turned into sultry 1940s glamour girl—and to take the glamor girl to bed . . . .
“Yes, sweetheart, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s just . . . well, I enjoyed talking to you about the past . . . Would you like to do that some more?”
She paused, clearly thinking, then nodded slowly. Louis knew a couple of points were in his favor. First of all, if he didn’t ignore her wishes, Elle wouldn’t be mad—or at least, wouldn’t stay mad—at him for his sneak attack. She had told him herself, once, that people often went into trance without knowing it during her lectures, and that sometimes she brought them up on stage and gave them commands, even making them do silly stunts to amuse the audience. “Before I wake them, I tell them they’ve had a wonderful time, and they think I’m wonderful,” she said. “And nobody stays mad at something that makes them feel so good.”
“You’re going to have a wonderful time,” he said. “You will enjoy your trance and your memories, do you understand?”
She nodded again.
“All right, sweetheart,” he said. “Last time we talked about your high school years. I want to know what it was like to go to State U. after that.”
To his surprise, she frowned. “I can’t—”
“Can’t what, sweetheart?”
“Can’t—can’t—can’t remember. I can’t remember those years. I can’t, I can’t—”
“Easy, Elle, just relax, let that go, let that go—you don’t want to remember?” If she didn’t want to go on, he would never think of pushing her to do anything against her will. She had told him she enjoyed reliving and recovering her memories, but of course some might be bad.
“No,” she said. “I mean I … can’t remember … It’s … there’s something in the way….”
“Just relax,” he said. “What’s in the way?”
“It’s … I’m thinking of a wall… it’s a brick wall ….”
Louis frowned. How could there be a brick wall in his wife’s memory? He did know enough to know that the last thing you wanted to do with a wall was try to tear it down. Rule one: no breaking, no tearing, do no harm.
“Would you like to see what’s behind it?”
“No—wait—no—yes. Yes. Yes!! I would, yes I would! Why is there a wall?” She was becoming agitated.
“Relax, Elle, just feel that and let go for now, let go just for now, let it float away as you let yourself relax, you’re here with me, that’s it, just relax.”
He thought for a moment. How could he help with this? He thought of simply waking Elle up, but he could tell by her face that she was hooked now too—wanted to know what was behind the wall and wanted his help.
“Elle, let’s try something now. I want you to look at the wall. It’s just a wall. Can you see it?”
Nod.
“Now look up, to about shoulder level on the wall, and you’re going to see a TV set there, one of those flat-panel high-density TVs, just attached to the wall, can you see it?”
Nod.
“That TV can show us a lot of things, and the great thing about it is that you can see things without being there, do you understand? You can see a lion, like on Nature Channel, can you see it?”
Nod. Elle smiled. She liked lions. She and they were kindred spirits—powerful, regal, and self-assured.
“Now you can see a volcano, like in a disaster movie with the Rock, and it’s like being in your theater seat, can you see it?”
She was nodding and smiling broadly. Elle loved cheesy disaster movies, especially if they starred Dwayne Johnson.
“Good, good! Now there’s another show you can watch safely—it’s called ‘The Other Side of the Wall,’ and you can watch it from where you are, do you want to?”
“Yes,” she said after a minute. “Will you … be there?”
“Yes, sweetheart, I am right here and you can wake any time you need to, understand?”
Nod.
“Okay, the show is starting—tell me what is happening on the screen, remember, you’re safe here in your chair, watching because you want to, you can turn it off any time you want. What do you see?”
“It’s called ‘Sophomore Year,’” she said in a half-whisper. “I signed up to major in Psychology. I am excited—it’s a course called ‘Introduction to Hypnosis,’ by Professor… Professor . . . Des…. mond . . . .”
Suddenly she looked younger, and a silly smile crossed her face—as if she was about to giggle or pop her bubble gum— “He’s really CUTE… all the girls have crushes on him …”
Now Louis found himself frowning. It was ridiculous to be jealous of a TV image of a memory, but he found himself wishing Elle were looking at him that way with such… desire, so open and eager—stop that! he thought, because he was having distracting sexy thoughts.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in class—it’s the first day—so excited—and … he comes in and introduces himself, even though everybody knew who he was…. And he tells us we will learn the history and theory of hypnosis, and how it’s used in therapy, in medicine—and … in entertainment. And so he … he says he will give us a demon…demonstration….”
“What does he do?”
Elle sat up all of a sudden and clasped her hands in front of her. “He tells us all to clasp our hands . . . tighter and tighter …:” Her knuckles tightened, turning white.
“Elle,” Louis said, “let go of your hands—you’re just watching this, not living it—nod your head.”
She nodded and her hands fell into her lap. “So I clasped my hands and he told us they were tight—tighter—tighter—and then he said I couldn’t pull them apart—and … I couldn’t—they were fastened like glue… and he said if our hands were stuck we should stand up—and I did—and there were five of us, three girls and two boys, and he had us march down to the front of the class and sit in chair there and then he told the others to watch as he told us we were relaxing… getting slee…py….slee….”
“This is TV, Elle, stay here with me,” Louis said. She nodded.
“I went out… I think we all did but I don’t know because I couldn’t open my eyes… and he had us do … tricks…the other students laughed and laughed and laughed but he told us that the laughter just relaxed us more and he said I was a prize subject and so he told me I was special and I was a … chicken… he made me a chicken and I flapped my wings and laid an egg and everyone laughed… and I knew they were laughing but it didn’t matter… all that mattered, all I could think about, all I could focus on was following his suggestions . . . .” As he watched, she started to fold her hands under her arms like wings, and he figured next thing she’d be up clucking.
“That’s okay, Elle, you’re watching TV, tell me what he’s saying.”
“He puts me back to sleep—I think the others—and he tells us we will wake up feeling wonderful and proud because he is wonderful and we are special… I am special… if others laugh it’s because they are jealous . . proud because we are special, he puts his hand on my head and says, ‘You are the most special of all, my dear,’” and she suddenly sat up straight in her chair with an almost comical look of pride.
“Then what?”
“Then he wakes us up and everyone claps and he begins class.”
“How is the class?”
“It is wonderful. Learning hypnosis was wonderful. Professor Desmond was wonderful. Everything was wonderful—wonderful—it was wonder—”
“Relax, darling, just let that go for now.” Clearly there was a lot of emotion stored up in these memories, and the word “wonderful” seemed to be part of a suggestion the hypnotist had given Elle. Louis had a troubling suspicion.
“Did you get to know Professor Desmond, Elle?”
“Yes,” she said. “I went to his office hours.”
“Why?”
“Because—he was . . . wonderful . . . . He made me feel … special…”
“What happened at office hours, Elle? You can see it on the TV.”
“I’m sitting in his office. He tells me I am special, I am the most talented student he has ever had, he will help me, and then . . . then . . . .”
“Remember, sweetheart, it’s TV, it’s not happening to you, you can turn it off…. So what happens then?”
“Then … he locks the door and he . . . has me… on his office couch . . . .”
Louis was struggling now with a blend of jealousy and rage. He could see the rapturous look on Elle’s face—this sexual experience must have been intense, and he was nettled. Behind that, it sounded like this Desmond had taken advantage of his position of power as a teacher and a hypnotist.
“Then what is happening?”
“I’m so happy … I’m in love with him . . . he says I’m special… I want people to know but . . . he can’t tell people yet… he has to tell his wife he wants a divorce . . . and we meet at his office . . . or go to a hotel in town . . . he teaches me hypnosis by … hypnotizing me… and he has me…whenever he wants and however he wants and it is so sexy and he is … wonderful and I am special . . .”
Now her face was troubled and she began to fold her shoulders and tuck her hands in her lap as if she was trying to make herself disappear.
“Then what? It’s on TV, what is the next act?”
“It’s . . . it’s Christmas break… we were going to go away… . I didn’t want to go home . . . but then . . . he said he had to see me . . . I am in his office—what’s wrong? He’s looking very . . .distant! What’s wrong?”
“It’s TV, Elle, it can’t hurt you, you’re watching . . . .”
“He’s saying that he can’t leave his wife after all—she’s having a hard time , , , and his daughter is applying to college . . . . And I’m crying and saying ‘Please, professor, please’ and he laughs—he laughs—and then he waves his hand and I go … to . . . slee . . .”
“Stay with me, Elle, you’re with me, not with him, tell me what is happening . . . .”
“He tells me that I am going to forget that we were ever . . . together . . . I am going to have no . . . memory . . . and he tells me to build . . . a brick wall . . . a brick wall . . . and then . . . .” She stopped, a blank look on her face.
“And then what happens on the screen, Elle?”
“Then—then nothing. I went home for Christmas and it was like it never happened—except… when I came back I could only wear black and people were scared of me . . . like I was one of those girls from ‘The Craft’ and there were rumors and guys would hit on me in a crude way. . . and I didn’t know what was wrong I only knew I wasn’t . . . special anymore and I didn’t—I didn’t know—why….I didn’t know why! I didn’t know . . . .”
“Elle, that’s it now, coming back to me, reaching up and turning off the TV, just relax, relax.” Louis’s head was swimming—what had he stumbled into? The idea of someone taking advantage of his powerful and self-sufficient wife made him first incredulous and then furious—and the idea that someone had hurt her made him feel nearly homicidal. But that was a problem for another time—right now he had to soothe her and bring her back up and deal with the fallout from this memory.
“Elle, I want you to look at the TV now, you can see it, and it’s getting smaller and smaller and the wall is getting smaller and smaller and you are floating away on a cloud and you are looking down from the cloud and you see our house, you see your life, you see me and you see your friends and the wall is smaller and smaller and smaller and you are relaxed, just drifting and sleepy . . . .”
Her face smoothed out and she slumped in the chair. “Now you are going to drift and dream for ten minutes and when you wake up you will be relaxed and you will remember only what you want to remember, only what you are ready to remember, do you understand?”
She nodded. “Good girl. Now sleep.” She slumped over and Louis, agitated, got up from his chair and, without quite realizing it, began to pace the floor. What had he done? He’d never seen his wife tormented like this. True, she had her moments of vulnerability, but the Elle he knew was well armored; now the armor was in shreds. It hurt him to see her like this, and he knew it would hurt her if she came back to consciousness knowing that he’d seen her in despair and disarray. Luckily he had not somehow suggested that the wall had fallen or that she had taken it down. It was still there. He supposed he could tell her to forget it—but that would make him an accomplice of this predator who had used her and hurt her.
He looked down at her, breathing quietly, her eyes fluttering behind her lids.
And then he had an idea. Not an idea so much as a hunch. A hunch based on a memory. A hunch based on a memory that he thought was important because he knew Elle, knew her so well, studied her day and night. She was his main interest and his life and he thought that the moment had come when that devoted study might pay off for them both.
“Elle,” he said. “Can you hear me? Nod your head if you can hear me. That’s good. Now listen, we are going to look at a photo, just a photo, is that all right? Very good. It can’t hurt you, it can see you, it can’t make a scene, do you understand? Now here it is, I am handing it to you, you can see it. It’s a black and white photo of you that second semester, dressed all in black, walking between classes, can you see it?”
Elle’s eyes were closed, and her hand held empty air. But from the look on her face—a combination of embarrassment, disgust, and anger—she didn’t like the picture she was seeing.
“You see it, Elle? That’s good. Tell me what you see.”
“It’s me, dressed in black, with that tacky eye makeup, my God, what was I thinking? Can we get rid of this?”
“Just a moment, Elle. I want you to look around yourself and tell me what else you see. Is there anyone else in the picture? Are you carrying your books?”
“Me? Of course not.”
“Who’s carrying them, Elle?”
“I don’t know, nobody, really, it’s just—wait—”
“Do you see another figure? Look closely.”
Slowly she nodded.
“Is the figure in the background?”
Nod again.
“You know who it is, don’t you?”
Her puzzled look gave way to a rueful half-smile. “It’s—yes, I know—it’s . . . Hank! It’s Hank.”
She could not see Louis smilint now as his desperate stratagem seemed to pay off. “Tell me about Hank, Elle. Tell me what you remember.”
She was more than half smiling now. “Wow, I had forgotten about Hank. He was just a… nice boy. He was in my classes that semester. We would . . . hang out. He would . . . well, he carried my books between classes. And if I skipped class, he’d … call me to make sure I was okay, and email me his notes so I didn’t get behind. He was always . . . just . . . there. I remember Hank.”
Louis knew Elle’s history in high school. With her beauty and her natural dominance, she drew followers to her without even trying—desperate men (and some women) who lived to serve her and please her and whom she often barely notice. “What happened to Hank?”
“I’m not sure… I ran into him the next fall—we weren’t in the same classes—it’s the funniest thing—I think he was mad I hadn’t called him when I got back—he came up and said, ‘You probably don’t remember me, I’m Hank, Elle, we were all the same classes last semester….’ And went away.”
“What happened to Hank?”
“He started dating a neuroscience major named . . . Harmony, that was it. She was one of those girls who’s always smiling and wanting to play Frisbee or something.” Elle signed heavily. “But she was darling.”
“Elle,” Louis said. “I want you to think for a minute. How do you think Hank felt about you?”
She frowned for a moment, then a new thought seemed to strike her. “You mean….oh, my God, really, it never occurred to me—he was—he was—”
“He was madly in love with you, Elle.”
Still in a trance, she covered her mouth, whether to hide grief or delight he couldn’t tell. “He was. He was!”
“Yes, he was, Elle. Do you think he thought you were special?”
Now it was definitely delight. “Yes, of course! I didn’t even notice—he was such a nice boy, and smart too.”
“He thought you were special because he saw what was special in you, Elle. Now I want you to look at the picture again, can you see it? That’s good. Now look at the image again and you’re going to find it’s changed. It’s not Hank at all, is it? It’s me. Do you see? It’s me!”
She was looking down at the air and smiling. Louis was smiling too now, because his hunch was paying off. He remembered how Elle had helped him draw the sting on some bitter memories by putting herself into them,**** even though the events had occurred long before they had met in “real life,” whatever that was. Now he would repay the favor.
“Here are more pictures of that year, Elle.” He handed her the invisible “photographs.” “Look at them. You’re going to classes. You’re hanging out with friends. If you’re feeling bad, if you’re feeling lonely, if you need anything, all you have to do is snap your fingers and I come running. I am always available to you, and when you don’t want me you can send me away. Can you see me, just waiting there in case you needed me? Can you see me where Hank was, because you let me follow you around and you knew I was in love with you and I saw how special you were and I still am and I still do and nothing can change that. Can you see that?”
She nodded again.
“Very good, Elle-now I am going to count to three and you will wake, feeling wonderful, remembering only what you choose to remember . . . one . . . two . . . three!”
She took a deep breath and her eyes fluttered open. She stretched her arms and legs and then looked at Louis as if surprised to see him. “How are you feeling, Elle?” he asked
“I’m ok—” she began, then stopped as if puzzled. “I’m—oh, my God, I had FORGOTTEN that! I had forgotten about Desmond! How? How?”
“He took that memory, Elle. He walled it off.”
“He built a wall in my head! That bastard. He really didn’t have any respect for me at all, did he?” she said in a tone of wonder. “How—how did I let that happen?”
Then she began to cry. Louis had feared she would be distraught when the memory hit her, but this was different—it was just sadness. There was no sobbing; this was crying like a grown woman who was feeling the sorrow of life and knew there was no escaping it—steady, almost peaceful tears of grief. “It’s so—so unfair—it was WRONG! It hurt me! That little shit! He used me and hurt me and he threw me away! Oh, God, Louis, if I hadn’t had you I would have—” she looked puzzled then. “Wait—you weren’t there, were you?”
“Was I?”
“You couldn’t have been, could you? But, wait, I feel like you were—there—watching over me….”
“Well, I feel you were with me at college.”
“Oh,” she said. “I see.” She smiled. “You’ve learned a lot, haven’t you?”
“Elle,” he said. “I pay attention to you. I soak up what you say, what you do, what you think. You’re my lover and my mistress and I am there for you and when I can’t be with you I am thinking about you and no one is going to ever hurt you again while I am around.”
The tears started again, but there was some joy and amusement mixed in with the sorrow now. “Louis,” she said. “Come here.”
He went over to her and more or less jumped into his arms. “Take me to bed,” she said. The she covered his mouth with hers.
Ever after, Louis could not quite remember whether she had just slipped out of her clothes quickly or she had somehow made them magically disappear or she had snapped him in and out of trance, but in a twinkling he was standing in front of him naked and she snapped her fingers in his face and said “OBEY, Louis! Clothes off now!” The hypnotic trigger was probably not needed, but in any case his own clothes also seemed to disappear (in fact, he never found that green golf shirt again—it just vanished into thin air) and then she came swarming into his arms and pushed him flat on the bed and mounted him. “Louis,” she said. “I could just swallow you whole.”
But in fact as she put him inside her, it seemed the reverse was true. She seemed to want to climb into him, to be inside his skin, to feel what he felt, to be closer to him than she’d ever been before. Their sex life was good—it was wonderful—but never before had Louis felt so desired by his wife. The two of them moved together for a time he could never estimate afterwards, until he looked up and saw that her eyes were closed and she was lost in an orgasm that was deep and peaceful and warm. Then as she fell silent they went on and on until he felt his own consciousness focus and narrow to a point until a blaze of light blossomed behind his eyelids and he could only feel himself inside her as he came and came and seemed to come forever.
They lay side by side for an unknown time, deep and peaceful and they seemed to be speaking without words and entwined without touching and sleeping while awake.
“Elle,” he said at last. “You seem . . . different.”
She chewed her lower lip meditatively. “I feel different, Louis. I feel like I was carrying a weight around with me—a brick wall inside me—and now it’s gone.”
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart. I’m so glad.”
“But, Louis, I am not entirely different. I am still your mistress, do you understand?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he said happily.
“Good,” she said, and reached out to touch his forehead. “Sleep.”
At once his eyes slammed shut and he collapsed on the bed, deep in trance. “Louis,” she said. “I want you to picture a blackboard in your head, a blackboard in your memory, can you see it? Good. Now, there are words on that blackboard, they are coming into focus, you can see them—oh, look, Louis, it’s ‘Song of the Chattahoochee’ by Sidney Lanier—can you see it? Good. Now take this eraser and clean that blackboard—that’s right, back and forth—and when you finish the poem will be gone from your memory and you will . . . never . . . think of it again. Do it now!”
Louis’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed on the bed. She turned away from her sleeping husband and lover and stared into the darkness for a long time, brooding over forgetfulness and desire, grief and healing, and then, as sleep came, of revenge.