‘Tom the gardener and his pitbull, Tiger,’ she said. There is a tremor in her voice. ‘I am afraid of them. I want them to go away.’
‘Nothing can harm you, Olivia. You are just watching a scene from a very safe place.’
‘Tiger comes into the room, his tags rattling. The sound makes me feel cold all over. He has powerful jaws and a big chest, but he is also very strong. I have seen him train with Tom in the garden. Under his shiny black fur his muscles are thick and rippling. His broad, square head turns in my direction and his small, piggy eyes find me. I am scared of Tiger.
‘“Attention,” Tom says, and Tiger walks into the middle of the room. From this position he will not move until Tom gives him the command to leave. His yellow eyes never blink. He opens his mouth and starts breathing noisily. Drool starts sliding from his teeth down to the floor.
‘“I don’t want to,” I tell Tom. “Please. It’s still my birthday and Daddy says I’m allowed to do anything I want on my birthday.” Tom laughs. “I’ve got a birthday treat for you.”
‘“I don’t want it,” I say. Tiger begins to growl. The sound terrifies me. I start to cry. “Stop it,” Tom scolds. “I can’t bear it when you do that.”
‘Tiger’s growl becomes more ferocious. He starts frothing. Tom makes me take my knickers off. Then he puts his mouth between my legs… And he licks and sucks me…down there… And then my head goes funny, and after a while my body starts floating.’
I sprang out of my seat, stunned, and paced the floor with my right hand pressed against my forehead. I couldn’t believe it. I had found the white owl. And it was the fucking gardener! A hiss of pure hate tore from my throat. Disgust, like fingers, was in my guts, stabbing, clawing ripping. Pedophilia never ceased to amaze me, no matter how many times I heard about it. How could human beings take their sickness out on innocent little children?
The bastard. The sick, sick bastard.
My eyes filled with tears of rage. If he had been there I would have killed him with my bare hands, I swear it. I started to retch, but it was dry—the grotesque thing would not come up. I covered my face with my hands and dragged my fingers up and through my hair. I could not let her go on. I could not hear another word. I was so violently angry my body was trembling uncontrollably.
‘Stop,’ I screeched.
The sound was so loud in the completely silent room her body jerked. I turned and stared at her with narrowed eyes. Her eyelids fluttered and then she went still. Fuck! That was stupid. I could have shocked her out of her hypnotic state and made it all so much worse.
I felt desperate to leave the room and glug down half a bottle of JD. All I wanted to do was get rid of the filthy, ugly image that was clinging like a rotten fungus to my brain. I just didn’t want to deal with it. I felt incapable of it. First Maria. Now her.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.
Now I understood why she had answered ‘growl’ when I had said ‘dog’ during the word association play. And it explained why she had allowed herself to be debased by the Invisible Society. A society that she spoke of with disgust.
It was a direct result of what that worm had done to her. By forcing her to climax in the presence of a growling dog he had rewired her child brain to connect sex with fearful circumstances. As an adult she needed danger to get the same high. So she had taken risks with her sex life. Putting her life in danger to get back the sexual high that had been forced upon her as an innocent child.
I went and stood over Olivia and gazed down at her. She was lying with her eyes closed, her face blank of all expression. Completely oblivious to what was happening around her.
My chest rose and fell with every breath I took. I experienced a strong desire to rest my cheek on top of her golden head. I was still staring at her with a mixture of longing and pity when it hit me. I had been so shocked and horrified by what the gardener had done I had missed it. Completely. I turned toward her.
‘Where is the white owl, Olivia?’
And she began to shiver with absolute terror. And I knew then that whoever the white owl was, he or she was not the gardener. The little girl’s fear was such that once again she was in danger of being ripped out of her trance.
‘That’s all right, Olivia. You’ve done well. You can go to your safe place now. I want you to remember a happy memory. Can you do that?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, warmth flowing back into her voice, and recalled a picnic with her mother.
I brought her out with the instruction to forget everything except the picnic.
She turned and smiled at me. ‘I feel really good.’