Dressed to Kill Read Online Free PDF

an empty bed. I mean . . . Mike came along. He filled a gap.”
    “Was that a good enough reason?”
    “Obviously not,” she said quickly.
    She listened to the silence in the room. Elliott had stopped rocking his chair. She raised her face and looked at him and before she could stop herself she was telling him about the dream. She was telling him about the shower, the man who clamped his hand over her mouth, the gradual yielding of herself to pleasure . . . His expression didn’t change. He listened with his hands clasped on the desk in front of himself:
    “Why does he seem familiar to you, Kate?” he asked when she had stopped.
    “I don’t know . . . Maybe because I keep having the dream. Not every night. Two, maybe three times a a month. That’s all. I guess I should have mentioned it before, except it seemed so goddamn infantile.”
    “Infantile? I don’t think so. I’m interested in why he’s familiar, that’s all. I mean, does he remind you of anyone you’ve ever met?”
    “No.” She could feel it now, the direction this was taking, the suspicion she’d entertained before, but it was wrong, horrible, macabre. It was only a goddamn dream, after all.
    “Is there something, in the way he touches you?” Elliott asked. “Is there something in the way he feels, Kate?”
    “I know what you’re thinking—”
    “I’m not thinking anything.”
    She got up from her chair. “You are . . .”
    Elliott sat back again. The chair began to rock. It reminded her of an infallible clock smugly ticking seconds away. She imagined it would go on rocking even after Elliott was no longer sitting in it.
    “You’re thinking it’s Thomas, aren’t you? That’s what crossed your mind, isn’t it? You think I’m fucking a dead man in my dream, don’t you? Jesus Christ.”
    “I didn’t suggest that. You suggested it. Not me, Kate. If this man in the dream reminds you of Thomas, it’s only because the dream is compensatory. It’s your way out of the bind of the marriage. It’s your way of compensating yourself for Mike’s failure in bed. So you create a lover, a rapist, whatever. And he satisfies you. Thomas, somebody else, it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing to feel shame over—”
    “I don’t feel any fucking shame!”
    “Don’t get angry with me, Kate. Where does your anger really lie? Mmm? Where does it really lie?”
    She shut her eyes. Christ, how she could hate Elliott.
    “Maybe it lies with Mike. And with yourself. Maybe you should explain his failings to him.”
    “Tell him he stinks in bed?”
    “If you have to,” Elliott said.
    She saw him glance at his watch now. The meter was running. The time ticking away. It’s like riding in an expensive cab, she thought. And she felt even more annoyed with him.
    “There’s a wall, Kate. Mike thinks he’s satisfactory. You lead him to believe it. Unless you tell him differently, he’s going to go on believing it. And when that happens, the whole situation will deteriorate even more.”
    “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” she said.
    “Something like that.”
    “What am I supposed to do? Look into his eyes and say, know what Mike, you suck in bed? Could you do that in my position?”
    “If I had to.”
    If you had to, she thought. I can’t imagine anything in your life, Elliott, that could create adverse situations. I can’t imagine you out of control, slave to some emotion, I can’t even imagine you taking your goddamn clothes off. So what’s the big secret? I’m paying you enough; why don’t you tell me? How do I become perfect like you, shrink? Where do I get the blueprint for happiness?
    “But you don’t have to tell him quite so harshly, do you?” he asked. “You don’t have to be so crude. You could find a gentle way of letting him know that the sexual relationship is lacking.”
    The sexual relationship is lacking. How clinical. How chilly. How utterly pat. See here, Mike, you don’t fuck me well enough, so I have to get my