Dear Kathleen:When I was in college I had a lesbian affair with my roommate. I always considered it an experiment so I never gave it much thought. A year later I married a man, and I never had any reason to question my heteros.e.xuality. Recently we divorced, though, after 10 years, and suddenly I"ve become attracted to a woman at my place of work. Now I feel very disoriented about myself. Am I a lesbian?

Dear Very Disoriented:The best way to determine your true s.e.xuality is to first isolate the motives of your divorce. If your marriage disintegrated because of a lack of s.e.xual interest on your part, then you may well have been repressing genuine lesbian urges for the entirety of your marriage. On the other hand, you may be using a lesbian tendency to merely escape the possibility that your marriage failed for other reasons. When love relationships fail, we often seek escape rather than acknowledgment. See a psychologist.

Maxwell wondered what it must be like to counsel others on their problems and uncertainties. He was glad he was a man; it seemed far less complicated. He felt secure that he was living as honestly as he could. His poetry wasn"t an escape, but a recognition...

He put on his pants and went out on the balcony. A nice building and complex, clean; the maintenance fees must be skyhigh. Even this early-8:30-the heat and humidity smothered him. He thought about Kathleen.

He didn"t know what she wanted. He didn"t know what she liked or disliked. He didn"t know anything about her political views, her social views, her philosophy or religion. At least not really. And he didn"t know how she felt about him. But he loved her.

So at least he knew something.

Am I an idiot? he wondered. His hands gripped the railing as he looked out. Yes, he loved her, he knew that. he wondered. His hands gripped the railing as he looked out. Yes, he loved her, he knew that. I love Kathleen Shade, I love Kathleen Shade, he thought in increments. he thought in increments. I"ve known her-what?-three days? I"ve known her-what?-three days? He didn"t care. It didn"t matter to him. He"d fallen for women very quickly in the past and knew it was a mistake. But something told him this was different. He didn"t care. It didn"t matter to him. He"d fallen for women very quickly in the past and knew it was a mistake. But something told him this was different.

Providence? he wondered. he wondered.

No.

Resplendence.

He rushed back into the apartment. He must get rid of everything from his past-now, right now. Poetry was his exorcism. For years he"d been seeking to write the one poem that would release him from the failed love of his past and invite him into the future. I"ve got it! I"ve got it! he celebrated. he celebrated. It"s here! It"s here!

He"d never been more excited.

If he severed his past, then he could really be in love.

He could really be in love with Kathleen Shade.

The past was a crush of feelings, mostly bitterness, rage, and despair-all negatives. He believed that negativities were evil; they could never be constructive and therefore they could never make him a better person.

Resplendence! he rejoiced. he rejoiced.

He sat down at her desk and turned on her typewriter. She wouldn"t mind. He had to write it now, right here, before the moment, and its truth, evaded him.

He typed the poem, ent.i.tled "Exit," in four quick lines. He looked at it, or past it, or through it. This is it, This is it, he thought very slowly. His dedication to all the loves of his past. he thought very slowly. His dedication to all the loves of his past. We"re all trying to escape something, We"re all trying to escape something, he realized. he realized.

I"m free now, he thought. he thought.

He took the poem out of the typewriter, took it out onto the hot balcony, and burned it. It would seem weird to anyone but a poet. Creating it, then burning it, made it real.

I love Kathleen Shade, he thought almost giddily. he thought almost giddily.

He typed I LOVE YOU on a piece of paper in the typewriter. He put on his shirt and called a cab. He left the apartment.

Twenty minutes later the cab picked him up. When the cab dropped him off, he had no idea. How could he?

He had no idea that he had been followed all the way home by a dark blue Ford Festiva.

(II).

Brad Weston"s remains had been found at 6:30 in the morning by a D.C. parking officer, a young black woman named Judith Mullins. She worked the 11 to 7 shift; her supervisor, the night before, had rea.s.signed every Parking Section beat without explanation. "Scourge the wh.o.r.e blocks," he"d said at shiftchange. "Write up everything you see, regardless of the time, and call Traffic Branch immediately." "Why the change?" someone had asked. "Just do it," the supervisor had replied. So Judith Mullins did it. She wrote up every single illegally parked vehicle she could find in her new grid, a total of 16. Generally at night the mobile Parking Section officers only tagged vehicles in bus lanes and rush hour lines. These new orders didn"t make much sense...

"Nissan Sentra, red," she called in on her Motorola. "Good plates." She read off the tag number. "Dave and Lee"s Parking Lot, 14th and L. Nose in entry."

Judith generally cut slack on a nose in entry, so long as the entrance wasn"t blocked, but orders were orders. She filled out the fluorescentorange TB tag and was about to fix it to the car door when she noticed the puddle of blood going pasty just under the trunk.

(III).

Spence carried a Smith & Wesson Chief, a standard fiveshot snub, while most everyone else carried Glocks now. The Chief was tiny, light; Spence preferred it to today"s larger pieces for an absurd reason. A big gun worn under a suit jacket would bulge. He didn"t care about being made, he simply didn"t want his suits to look bad on him. To Spence a gun was a gun. It fired bullets. If you hit a bad guy with the bullets, the bad guy stopped doing whatever bad thing you were shooting him for. He didn"t need to be lugging around some big 19shot boat anchor and ruining the lines of his suits. If I die because of inferior fire power, If I die because of inferior fire power, he reasoned, he reasoned, then I"ll die because of inferior fire power. then I"ll die because of inferior fire power. End of story. End of story.

"Any run down yet?" Kohls asked.

"Another bar punk. The guy got more a.s.s than a toilet seat. Worked for an ad firm. Some friends at his office said he was going to The Dome last night. We"re grilling all the keeps and waitresses now."

Spence didn"t look at the body on the slab; he didn"t need to. Kohls had told him it was all the same. "She"s knocking them out first," he"d said. "Doing the lips, eyes, and ears while they"re unconscious, then bringing them back with Desoxyn. Tricky. She"s also scrubbing their backs with isopropanol."

"Why?"

Kohls shrugged. "What"s funnier is Calabrice"s tox screen showed some traces of isopropanol in his blood. It doesn"t figure. We"re still waiting on the fourth pa.s.s from chromatography."

"Red hairs on the body?"

"Yep. One head strand, two p.u.b.es. Same broad." Kohls took a step back in the workup section. He smiled, sipping coffee. "You ready for the good news?"

"Sure," Spence said.

"Kid"s wallet was wiped down, just like Calabrice. But she f.u.c.ked up."

"What do you-"

"I got a latent off the wallet."

Spence stared a moment, then broke for the phone.

"Relax, Lieutenant," Kohls said. "I already called Ident, and I gave them your MSC priority. They"ll call you."

Spence had never been one to show much positive emotion. He had to contain himself. Simmons was right, Simmons was right, he thought. he thought. He said she"d make a mistake, and she did. He said she"d make a mistake, and she did. A fingerprint could be meaningless if her prints weren"t on file, but if they were... A fingerprint could be meaningless if her prints weren"t on file, but if they were...

A name, an address...a face, he thought. he thought.

"I got TSD doing the Nissan right now," Kohls added. "We"ll let you know the minute we get anything."

"Thank you," Spence said. He felt...happy. There was a corpse lying beside him but he felt happy.

"She"s very meticulous," Kohls went on. He set his coffee down on top of a SYSTEM 350 helium laser, which could detect fingerprints and even perfect latent pore schemes on human skin. "It"s almost like a religion with her, the extremes she goes to inflict pain."

"She"s a clinical psychopath," Spence said.

"You know what she did to this guy?"

Spence didn"t really want to know.

"She stuck needles in his eyes. After she glued them shut and brought him back...needles, right through the eyelids into the optic nerve. Can you imagine not being able to see but feeling something like that?"

"No," Spence said. "What do you think about the Skins firing Turner? Christ, I think we need him."

"They"re long needles too, like dissection pins. She"s sticking them all they way down the optic ca.n.a.l into the brain."

Spence"s mouth went dry.

"And G.o.d only knows," Kohls added, "what she"s doing to their c.o.c.ks before she cuts them off."

(IV).

CHAPTER TWONEEDLEWORK.

Deaver"s Sharp/Sharp epidermal scissors. You clip open the s.c.r.o.t.u.m, a linch lateral cut. Through the cut you pop out the raw t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. There"s very little bleeding. It"s strange to look at. You expect the colors to be different. The exposed testes are whitish because they are covered by a fibrous sheath called the tunica. The epididymis looks like microscopic angel hair pasta. The remaining subcutaneous tissue looks offyellow, a pale squash color, with tiny dark lines like threads. The entire ma.s.s glistens hanging out of the scrotal sac. He"s still quite alive. His hips shiver steadily but that"s all they can do is shiver. His wrists and ankles are handcuffed to the bedposts. His back, shoulders, and waist are secured by restraints to a field traction board made of fibergla.s.s. And in addition to that you"ve immobilized his hips with leather BardParker pelvic restraints. You"re very thorough. The 100mgs of Desoxyn will make sure that he doesn"t pa.s.s out from the pain. You will make him feel everything. He must feel everything. He must. It"s all hanging there right in front of your face. It shivers. You gently squeeze the raw left ball in your fingers. It feels warm, wet. The network of tiny blood vessels make it pulse. Ethicon makes a lot of different kinds of needles. Most of them are small and curved for sewing up incisions. But they also make one called a KS. The KS is long and straight like a hat pin. You have a whole box of them. Make him feel, Make him feel, your mother tells you. Your mother is standing by The Window. Behind her you can see The Cross. "Okay," you say. You methodically push about a dozen of the KS needles through the left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. Each time you plant a needle, he screams. Each scream is like an explosion in his throat that goes nowhere because his lips are sewn shut. You let him lie there smothered in pain, roaring. Then you take all the needles out. You wait 10 minutes and have a gla.s.s of wine. You let him think it"s over. Then you stick the needles back in all over again. Now there"s blood but still very little. You leave the needles in the left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. It looks like a weird porcupine. But there are still plenty of nerves left. There are still plenty of things left for his devil to feel. You go on to the right t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. You clasp it in a pair of Ballenger tonsil forceps. Then, with an Arista #11 scalpel, you begin to dissect it. Very little blood oozes out. The pain sounds like a m.u.f.fled engine in his throat. The inside of the ball looks grayish like cooked meat. Suddenly this is dull. You slice many long grooves into the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e, stick some KS needles into it, then leave it alone. The b.a.l.l.s are finished so you go on. your mother tells you. Your mother is standing by The Window. Behind her you can see The Cross. "Okay," you say. You methodically push about a dozen of the KS needles through the left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. Each time you plant a needle, he screams. Each scream is like an explosion in his throat that goes nowhere because his lips are sewn shut. You let him lie there smothered in pain, roaring. Then you take all the needles out. You wait 10 minutes and have a gla.s.s of wine. You let him think it"s over. Then you stick the needles back in all over again. Now there"s blood but still very little. You leave the needles in the left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. It looks like a weird porcupine. But there are still plenty of nerves left. There are still plenty of things left for his devil to feel. You go on to the right t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. You clasp it in a pair of Ballenger tonsil forceps. Then, with an Arista #11 scalpel, you begin to dissect it. Very little blood oozes out. The pain sounds like a m.u.f.fled engine in his throat. The inside of the ball looks grayish like cooked meat. Suddenly this is dull. You slice many long grooves into the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e, stick some KS needles into it, then leave it alone. The b.a.l.l.s are finished so you go on. Do his devil now, Do his devil now, your mother says. The pain and terror have shrunk the p.e.n.i.s to a nub like it"s trying to retreat into the groin. "You can"t get away from me," you say. You hold it up with forceps, stretch it out straight, and begin sticking needles into the shriveled glans. You stick one all the way down the urethra. Each insertion causes a sound in his throat like a dog barking. This is beautiful, giving his devil so much to feel. It"s beautiful! your mother says. You"re getting hot now. You want to touch yourself, but not yet. You snip off all the topical skin from the shaft with the little Deaver"s snippers, then you stick more needles into the shaft, up under the rim of the glans, anywhere. You stick needles under his fingernails and toenails. You stick needles into his nipples, and into his navel. He won"t last much longer so you straddle his chest. You"re sitting on his chest. You stick needles into his eyes through the sealed eyelids, hunting for the optic ingress. You know when you"ve found it because the needles sink in much deeper and go deep into his brain. A little while later he dies. Then you have some more wine. You walk around in the quiet room, Daddy"s Room. Your mother is gone. You look out The Window and you see The Cross. It reminds you of something but you never know what. Later you take all the needles out. You sterilize them in the little autoclave. Then you cut off his c.o.c.k and b.a.l.l.s with your pair of Bruns serrated plaster shears. your mother says. The pain and terror have shrunk the p.e.n.i.s to a nub like it"s trying to retreat into the groin. "You can"t get away from me," you say. You hold it up with forceps, stretch it out straight, and begin sticking needles into the shriveled glans. You stick one all the way down the urethra. Each insertion causes a sound in his throat like a dog barking. This is beautiful, giving his devil so much to feel. It"s beautiful! your mother says. You"re getting hot now. You want to touch yourself, but not yet. You snip off all the topical skin from the shaft with the little Deaver"s snippers, then you stick more needles into the shaft, up under the rim of the glans, anywhere. You stick needles under his fingernails and toenails. You stick needles into his nipples, and into his navel. He won"t last much longer so you straddle his chest. You"re sitting on his chest. You stick needles into his eyes through the sealed eyelids, hunting for the optic ingress. You know when you"ve found it because the needles sink in much deeper and go deep into his brain. A little while later he dies. Then you have some more wine. You walk around in the quiet room, Daddy"s Room. Your mother is gone. You look out The Window and you see The Cross. It reminds you of something but you never know what. Later you take all the needles out. You sterilize them in the little autoclave. Then you cut off his c.o.c.k and b.a.l.l.s with your pair of Bruns serrated plaster shears.

She reads it one more time to make sure it"s good.

She"s sure she got rid of him good.

She thinks her tricks will work so she can go on and on.

She wonders what Kathleen Shade will think when she sees this new chapter.

I hope she likes it, she thinks.

This morning she drove by Kathleen Shade"s apartment and she saw a man with long blond hair standing on her balcony.

A little later a cab came by and picked him up.

She followed the cab.

She can"t let Kathleen Shade be corrupted.

Now she knows where the blond man lives.

I"m so proud of you, her mother says. her mother says.

"I"ll visit the blond man soon," she says.

Chapter 13.

(I).

Spence"s office seemed smaller, and he seemed larger: a welldressed, dispa.s.sionate giant. His eyes reminded Kathleen of chips of ice. It"s like being in a room with a golem, It"s like being in a room with a golem, she thought. she thought.

"This is disgraceful," he said.

"Look, you"re the one who told me to bring in anything from the killer," Kathleen objected.

"No, I told you to call me. I told you I"d send an evidence technician to pick it up. I told you not to touch anything you think might be from the killer. Not only did you touch it, you opened it, you handled it, you got your fingerprints all over it. This is ruined."

"I have a right to open my own mail," she countered. She had to lie a little, didn"t she? "How am I supposed to know if a letter"s from a killer or not? I have my column to write. It"s my job. I don"t have time to call you every time I get correspondence, Lieutenant. I don"t have time to wait for some evidence technician. evidence technician."

"When did you get this?"

"Yesterday."

"From your carrier in New York?"

"No," she said.