Mistrusting a Memory

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-33 & Epilogue Available On

PLEASE NOTE: This is a preview of this novel. It is available for purchase in its entirety via

Chapter Three

There was an uncomfortable silence in the booth, as they waited for the waitress to come and take their drink order. Once she was gone, Lacey looked at him, obviously waiting for him to speak.

"It's like this," said Bob, starting in on a speech he'd given countless times, to countless women like this one. Well...not quite like this one. This one was a lady. She had class. He rarely dealt with women of her class. But all he had was the speech, and some facts and figures, and that usually helped them understand what had happened to them and why it wasn't their fault.

"Rape isn't about sex." He waited for her to disagree, but she just stared at him, one eyebrow raised. "It's about domination...control...it's about making the victim helpless and degrading her."

"And that makes him feel..." her voice quavered.

"Powerful," said Bob. "It makes him feel like he's the most powerful person present—that's what gets him off. He wants to feel like he owns you...can make you do anything he wants you to, and that you are completely helpless to stop him."

"So I should have fought harder," she said.

"Not necessarily," he said, caution in his voice. "Some rapists are so weak and insecure that resistance unhinges them. The typical tactics taught to women like you, in the classes you've probably been going to, are to make noise, draw attention, use your keys on his face, or your knee in his groin. With that kind of rapist, that works. The problem is that with some of them, it doesn't work. That just makes them mean, because you didn't enslave yourself instantly. They punish you for your uppity behavior. The parallels between how a rapist feels about his victim and how a slave owner felt about his slaves, in the 1860s, are startling."

"But how can you fight? How can you prepare?" she asked, clearly upset.

"Sometimes you can't," said Bob. "That's why it's so important to find these men and lock them away. Most rapes, of the kind you suffered, where the woman doesn't know her attacker, are committed by very few of the total number of rapists."

"Some women KNOW who raped them?" she asked, aghast.

"Most women know their rapist," said Bob. "Statistically, if you removed the women who get into trouble with a man they know, we wouldn't have a rape problem in the United States."

"You mean date rape," she said.

"Yes…and drunk victim rape, and women who have a rape fantasy and it gets out of hand, and women who want to believe what happened was rape when, in fact, it probably wasn't."

Her body language suddenly screamed at him. She was so tense that she looked like she might actually jump up and run. Her hands gripped the edge of the table until there was no blood in her fingers.

"Calm down," he said immediately, soothingly.

"I'm calm." Her voice was so tight it had risen an octave.

"No you're not," he said gently. "You're screaming inside. What's wrong?"

She sat, rigid, for moments longer. He wanted to touch her again, but didn't.

"Look," he said finally. "This isn't easy to understand. Sometimes things happen that don't make sense."

Still she sat, frozen. The horror was back in her eyes again, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at something that wasn't even in the same building they were in.

"Is there something else?" he asked quietly. "Something else you didn't tell me?"

Her eyes cleared and then filled with tears. One ran over and trickled down her cheek.

"Tell me," he said. "You need to understand, and I can help you do that."

"You can't help me," she whispered.

"I think I can," he said. "You can't tell me anything I haven't heard before." He leaned forward. "Things happen that women are ashamed of and think is their fault. That's almost never true, but they THINK it's true. Something like that happened to you...didn't it."

Her eyes went down to the table. "Yes," she whispered.

"Tell me," he said.

"I can't," she moaned. "It's so terrible."

"I already know you had an orgasm," he said. "You think that's terrible, but it isn't. I can explain that, too. What else happened?"

"Paul and I..." she said and then faltered. "We used to play...games."

"Rape games," said Bob.

Her eyes snapped to his. She was horrified again, but this time it was the horror of being unmasked.

"How can you KNOW that?" she panted. "How did you know I had an orgasm!? It's like you can see into my brain!"

"Calm down," he said. "I told you, I've heard it all before. You're not as strange as you think you are, and you did NOT let yourself be raped."

"If only I could believe that," she moaned. "Paul is sure I did it on purpose...that I let a man in, while he was gone...that it got out of hand, like you said." More tears were coursing down her cheeks.

Bob handed her his napkin, and she took it and dabbed gently at the streaks.

"But I DIDN'T!" Frustration was in her voice. "I DIDN'T let him in. Not like that. I never saw him before!  He was just a repairman...except that he wasn't, and I couldn't do anything!"

"That's right," said Bob, his voice soothing. "You were helpless. He'd have killed you if you'd have struggled too much. Rapists with knives mean what they say. You had no choice."

"Then why did I have an ORGASM?!" Her voice was a hoarse, shouting whisper.

"You couldn't help that either," said Bob.

"You're just trying to make me feel better," said Lacey. "Teresa tried to insist that I didn't have an orgasm...that it was pain that I mistook for an orgasm, but I know the difference between pain and an orgasm. I felt both that day."

"I'm sure you did," said Bob. "As I said, Teresa is young and inexperienced. She's also poorly trained, as a lot of rape advocates are."

"So explain it," she said. She was calmer already, with the hope that he could do just that.

"An orgasm, whether it's in the male or female, is a physical process. The sexual organs are stimulated during the sex act. When the stimulation reaches a certain threshold, the body does things to relieve the situation, and an orgasm takes place. It's simple biology. The man ejaculates and the semen sooths the penis, causing it to deflate. In the woman, it causes her to want to lie still and rest. All that is nature's way of making babies happen. If the body is stimulated, it reacts. There's nothing you can do about it."

"But some orgasms come with less...stimulation...than others," she objected.

"That's the mental aspect of things. Your mind can supply some of the stimulation required. But even if your mind is totally against what is happening, the body can be manipulated in such a way that an orgasm HAS to take place, whether you want it to or not."

"So it was a fluke. He just happened to go long enough that I couldn't help it," she said.

"I suspect not," said Bob. She gaped at him and he went on. "For some rapists, who know what I just told you, part of the domination of the victim is to MAKE her have an orgasm. He knows she will be humiliated beyond anything else he could do to her, especially if she doesn't understand what's happening, like you didn't. It is the ultimate debasement of the victim. He makes her believe she wanted the whole thing to happen. Some women, who are repeatedly attacked by the same man, actually form a bond with their attacker. They come to believe that they just didn't know they wanted this kind of treatment. They voluntarily become enslaved."

She sat back. Her wine was untouched—he pushed it toward her.

"Take a sip. Do you see what I mean when I said none of this is your fault? You were manipulated all the way. He was an expert in making you feel that way. You really do have nothing whatsoever to feel guilty about."

"But what about the rape games?" she moaned. "That's why Paul thinks I did all this on purpose. He's sure that I was cheating, and that the man I was cheating with got carried away."

"I don't know Paul," said Bob. "But I do know he's an idiot. Your fantasy—the one you played with him—didn't involve knives, or hitting...did it?"

"Of course not," she said, flushing. "I can't even believe I HAD that fantasy now, but it wasn't anything like what happened to me. After what happened, I feel perverted for ever thinking that fantasy was hot."

"Your fantasy wasn't about rape," said Bob. "It was about playing at rape...pretending rape...pretending to be helpless when, in fact, you knew quite well that you were NOT helpless. You could stop it anytime you wanted to and, if you're like most other women, you did stop it on one or more occasions."

She shook her head. "How do you DO that?" she asked, her mouth open. "It's like you've been looking into my life with a secret video camera."

"You're not as different, or as odd, or as perverted as you think," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "You're just a woman, trying to understand why her world is falling apart."

She sipped her wine.

"So it really wasn't my fault." For the first time she made a statement of it, rather than a question.

"Nope," he said.

"I opened the door," she said softly.

"You should be able to open your door any time of the day or night." said Bob. "When someone chooses to victimize you, because you are trusting, THEY are victimizing you. You aren't inviting them to do anything."

She was quiet for five minutes, during which she finished her wine. Her eyes were far away again, but she wasn't tense this time.

Finally she focused on him again. "Are you going to catch that son of a bitch?"

"It probably won't be me," said Bob, truthfully. "I just make traffic stops these days."

She looked shocked. "That's my fault!" she moaned.

"No, it's not. It's Tracie's fault, and Dillworth. They're both so misguided that they think they did the world a favor."

"You know her name is Teresa," said Lacey, softly.

"What I know is that, since I got booted out of Sex Crimes, the man who raped you has raped two more women."

She was horrified.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I still talk to some of the boys," he said. "Your rapist...the one who knows how a woman's body works and uses it against her? That's called a modus operandi—an MO. There are other things he does too, like the use of a knife and propping doors open, so he can sneak in. These other women...their cases have everything yours did...except that they can't admit to the orgasm part, or some of the other things he made you do. They think if they admit to that, no one will believe they didn't want it to happen."

"That's what I believed," she said, nodding her head. "But what does it matter? I mean if you catch him, you catch him, right?"

"It matters because it ties cases together on much more than mere circumstantial evidence. Say we catch him for your rape. He goes away for ten to fifteen. He'll be out in six, on good behavior. But, if we can tie him to all three, and any more he's done or going to do before we catch him, he becomes a serial rapist. Now he's going away for life, with no possibility of parole. See why I ask those questions? See why it matters?"

"Yes!" she said excitedly. "I understand perfectly. So why don't you educate the advocates?"

"Because they won't listen to us. We're the enemy. We're the bullies who re-victimize the poor women and force them to remember what happened to them. They don't want to believe that a woman can have an orgasm during a rape. Their definition of orgasm has to include pleasure."

"What can I do to help?" she asked. Her attitude was upbeat again.

"Well, you could become a rape advocate yourself," said Bob, smiling. "You'd be a lot better than Tara." He grinned. "We have to stop talking about her. I'm running out of names that begin with T."

She stood up.

"I have to go. But I want to thank you for explaining all that to me. I really do feel much better."

"No problem. Keep your door locked. I don't want to worry you, but if you tripped his trigger, he might actually want to see you again."

"What do I do if I do see him again?" she asked, a little fearfully.

"If it's on the street, do nothing. Act like you don't recognize him at all, but go into a store or someplace, like you're shopping. Ask the clerk to call 911. If he or she won't, then hide behind the counter or start screaming your head off. Draw as much attention as you can. Your rapist will want none of that and will take off."

"But you won't catch him!" she moaned.

"It will unnerve him. He won't feel in control. If we're lucky, that will make him lose interest in you and pick another victim."

"Great, now I'm responsible for him picking some other poor woman to put through what he put me through."

"Well, you could always gouge his eye out."

"What!?"

"If you're close enough to reach his face, stick your middle finger into his eye socket, on one side, and hook your finger around behind his eyeball. Jerk like you're trying to start a lawn mower, and his eyeball will pop right out of his head. It will hang there, by the optic nerve. He'll fall on the ground, and somebody will come and arrest him."

"That's horrible!" She blanched.

"What he did to you is horrible. His eye can be fixed. Nobody can fix what he did to you."

"I really have to go," she said.

"Sure."

She started off, her bag hung over her shoulder. Ten steps away, she stopped and turned.

"Detective?"

"Yeah?"

"Racquetball? Wednesday? Same time and place?"

"Make it six PM and you're on," said Bob.

"Six, Wednesday," she said. "I'm going to embarrass you."

"Don't bring any friends to watch," said Bob. "You might be the one who gets embarrassed."

"We'll see," she said, confidently.

He was smiling as she walked away. This time, he got to watch, and she was pure joy to watch. She had that unconscious sway to her hips that announced she was passionate and relaxed. He was surprised, in a way. Most women took a lot longer to learn to relax again, after something like Lacey had been through. They had to learn lots of things over again...if they could.

Bob checked his watch for possibly the hundredth time. He'd been checking all day, as he patrolled and interacted with the public. It had worried him, because he was distracted, and being distracted was dangerous. Traffic was pud duty, but it was still dangerous. You never knew when some motorist would snap and do something stupid...to someone else...or to you.

He was distracted by Lacey Fetterman. He couldn't get her out of his mind. Young, healthy, beautiful—she'd had everything going for her, until she was raped. Then her husband had tossed her away, like a used tissue. Her world had been destroyed. She was trying to cope, but her internal demons weren't helping. He was going to play racquetball with her in six hours...five hours and ten minutes...five hours... four and a half hours... It went on and on. The last thing Lacey Fetterman needed was a horny detective...ex-detective...ogling her and wishing he could see what the rapist had seen.

He walked forward to the car he had stopped for weaving in and out of two lanes, cutting off and almost hitting a car. When he approached the driver, she was still talking on her cell phone, one hand up, telling him to wait. The conversation was about a sale she'd just been to.

"Sign here," he said, pointing to a line on the ticket with his pen, which he offered the woman.

"I'll call you back in a sec," she said into the phone and flipped it closed. She turned to Bob. "You're actually going to write me a ticket?" she whined. "I didn't hurt anything!"

"You almost caused an accident," he said, patiently. "The ticket is for inattentive driving. I'd suggest you leave your cell phone in your purse while you're driving."

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!" screamed the woman, her face twisting into a mask of rage. She ripped the pen from his hand and threw it at him.

"Ma'am, you need to calm down," said Bob patiently.

"FUCK YOU, PIG!" she screamed. She reached for the ignition.

"If you drive away from here," said Bob, his voice suddenly heavy, "I'll have to stop you again, and THIS time you'll be going downtown in the back of my car. Just sign the ticket. It's not an admission of guilt. You can still plead not guilty in court."

"Fucking pigs!" spat the woman. "Harassing citizens...I PAY YOUR FUCKING SALARY!" she yelled. "YOU WORK FOR ME!"

Her phone rang, on the seat beside her.

"Don't answer it!" warned Bob. "We're not quite done here."

The woman picked up the phone anyway, looked at it and flipped it open. As she was putting it to her ear, he reached in and pulled it from her hand.

"Shirley can't come to the phone right now," he said, into the mouthpiece. He slapped it closed and threw it past her to the other side of the car. While she was still shocked, he leaned down and picked up his pen.

He stood up to find she hadn't been as shocked as he'd thought she was. Her hand was coming out of her purse, and there was a hunk of nickel plated .25 automatic in it.

He reacted without thinking. His left hand reached through the window and grabbed the slide of the weapon. He twisted it away from him, toward the front of the car, bending her wrist painfully, until she had to let go. Her finger was stuck in the trigger housing, and she pulled. There was a sharp report and the plastic lens covering her speedometer cluster starred.

Bob wrenched the pistol from her finger, eliciting a howl of pain as her finger was jerked loose, and then pulled the door open. Thankfully, she wasn't wearing a seat belt. A small part of his mind said it would remind him later to add that to the ticket. He pulled her out by her hair, stuffing the pistol into his left pants pocket.

The woman struggled, screaming constantly, but was no match for Bob, who got her on the ground and put a knee in the small of her back. He cranked one arm up behind her until her fingers were at the back of her neck. She wailed, as he got the other arm and pulled it back. Her pretty dress was pressed into the dirty, oil-soaked pavement, and her legs kicked, showing nice thighs, as he cuffed her.

"You're under arrest for assault on a police officer in the commission of his duties," said Bob, breathing deeply, to avoid panting. He went through the rest of the spiel, as she continued to scream at him. He didn't question her. He just pulled her up and tossed her, still screaming into the back of his patrol car. She started kicking at the windows, and he got a shot of peach colored panties under the dress.

His radio call, which included "shots fired," got some attention. Four more cars screamed in. One had the patrol supervisor in it.

"Let me get this straight," said the beefy man. "You stopped her and wrote her for inattentive driving, and she tried to kill you."

"That's pretty much it," said Bob. He pulled out the pistol and handed it to the supervisor, who sniffed the barrel and shrugged.

"OK," said the man, handing the pistol back to Bob. "We'll cover your turf. You have a shitload of paperwork to do."

Bob checked his watch. Three hours and forty-five minutes.

He might just make it.

Chapter Four

He was, in fact, five minutes late. Jeff Quincy, the patrol captain, had been just as incredulous as the patrol supervisor, and had used up half an hour being convinced that this wasn't some kind of mistake. When it turned out that the woman was the wife of a city councilman, it got more interesting, but the gun and the bullet hole in the dashboard pretty much told the story. This would be extremely difficult to sweep under the carpet.  

It helped that the woman insisted she had only been trying to defend herself, as "that corrupt cop" tried to extort money from her at gunpoint. It didn't hurt that two witnesses had identified themselves to the detectives who responded to the scene, either. Their story matched Bob's, though neither one had seen her pull the gun. They were, however, quite positive that Bob never pulled his, even after they heard a gunshot.

As he arrived at the gym, he saw Lacey, waiting for him. She was already dressed for play.

"Sorry," he panted. "Got held up at work."

"You'd think criminals would be smarter than to try to stick up a cop," said Lacey, smiling.

"Ha, ha," said Bob. "Be ready in a minute."

An hour and a half later, they were sitting against the wall of the court again, gasping for breath. She had won six games, he had won five. He was impressed.

"I'm...embarrassed," he panted.

"You...should be..." she panted back. "I was...only...playing...at half...speed."

He grinned. "You should...have brought...your friends after all," he gasped.

A look of pain flitted across her face.

"Haven't...got any...left," she said. She breathed deeply several times. "They all act...like I have AIDS or something."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"There is the support group," she said sadly. "But I don't think any of them are into racquetball." She brightened, but not much. "I did find an apartment."

"Good," he said. "Lock your doors."

She looked at him, her mouth open.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Habit."

"Thank you," she said suddenly.

"What for? You won fair and square."

"No, for caring," she said. "Of everybody, you've been the nicest to me. You treat me like I'm normal."

"You are normal," he said.

"You know what I mean," she said.

"You're welcome."

"I'm having some trust issues...with men." Her voice was dull.

"Gee," he said. "I wonder why?"

"See!" she said, smiling a little. "You're willing to talk about it. Everybody else just tells me to forget it and move on, like it was just a broken fingernail or something."

"It's uncomfortable to talk about," said Bob. "They want to put a Band-Aid on the owie, so they can think about something less troublesome."

"Anyway, I just wanted you to know I trust you. You're the only man I think I can trust right now."

Bob groaned. "Thanks a LOT!"

"What?" she looked hurt.

"You trust me? That's the kiss of death!  Next you'll be telling me you just want to be friends!"

She blinked, then laughed. "Are you FLIRTING with me?!"

He shook his head. "Wouldn't be ethical. You're vulnerable right now. Add that to drop dead gorgeous and kickass talented on the racquetball court and I'd be a heel to take advantage of you."

Her eyes narrowed and then her brow furrowed.  

"You didn't let me win."

He laughed. "You got THAT right!  Nobody's beat me six games in one session in YEARS!"

"You know what happened to me. You know about my...past. But you just treat me like a friend." She looked confused.

"See?" he chuckled. "There's that word...already."

"You treat me like a normal woman," she said, not smiling.

"You are a normal woman."

"Other men who know...there aren't many…but they won't even look at me," she said. "Yet here you are...flirting with me."

"OK, maybe a little," said Bob. "It's probably just an aftereffect of almost getting shot, so don't pay any attention to it."

"Shot?"

He told her about the councilman's wife.

"You're KIDDING!" she squealed. "She tried to kill you over a TRAFFIC TICKET?"

He shrugged.

"You're taking this awfully calmly," she said.

"No I'm not. It drove me to flirt with you. I'm almost out of control." He grinned. Then his grin faded. "Really, I'm sorry…about the flirting. I know you don't need that."

"That's all right," she said. "At least from you."

As Lacey walked to her car, she thought about what had just happened. For an hour and a half, her mind had been clear. Trying to keep up with Bob on the court took all her concentration. It had been wonderful to do something that made her forget. And afterward, sitting there. She had said it was all right for him to flirt with her, but she wasn't sure about that. It had felt good, for a few seconds. Then everything had rushed back into her mind.

She shuddered, and took inventory again, for possibly the thousandth time. Her body was healing. Soon, there would be no trace to show what had happened to her. She had spent almost an hour, sitting in front of a mirror, staring between her legs. It didn't look any different. It didn't feel any different. The pain when the man had first forced himself into her had been excruciating. There had been no natural lubrication to ease his entry, and it had felt like he was tearing strips of skin from inside her. It didn't look that way, though. Of course, then her body betrayed her and the lubrication came, bringing with it horror in her mind as she felt her body coming alive under his thrusting hulk. She had hated herself then, not knowing what to think—thinking that she was so perverted that she was actually approving of this horrible man and the horrible thing he was doing to her. Thankfully, most of the details were just a haze in her mind. But that orgasm couldn't be forgotten.

Now, at least, she understood why it had happened. Thanks to the detective...no...she thought of him as "Bob" now. "Detective" was so formal...so distant. He was so different, in so many ways, from any other man she'd ever met. He seemed dangerous, but not in a scary way. She knew he'd played hard. He hadn't cut her any slack at all. His flirting had brought with it instant suspicion that he was gaming her...setting her up. But he hadn't made any moves. Other than the flirting, anyway. And only a teensy little bit of that. She tried to remember where he had looked at her, on those few occasions she had been with him. She couldn't remember. She'd had too many other things on her mind, then, to think about where he was looking.

Most men looked at her body. Except those who knew she'd been raped. Those men wouldn't even look at her at all. At first, she thought they somehow felt responsible for what had happened to her, but soon she realized they viewed her as something tarnished...sullied...not worthy of their evaluation or interest.

That caused her more anguish. She didn't WANT men to evaluate her or be interested in her. Not yet, anyway. At the same time, she still wanted to be desirable. It frustrated her, because she couldn't decide what she wanted and no one would help her sort it out.

The girls at work seemed to be pretending that nothing had happened, but they couldn't meet her eyes anymore. The women in the support group just droned constantly about how it wasn't their fault. She knew that. The prick that had done this to her was at fault. She hated him, with a white-hot anger. She wasn't concerned about what he'd done to her body. That would heal—was already mostly healed—but what he'd done to her spirit...for that, she wanted revenge.

She sat there, in her car, and the urge came over her. She got into the console and pulled out a cigarette and her lighter. She hated smoking, but sometimes she had to do it. She had managed to get to where she only smoked one every other day or so...before the rape. Now, she was back to five or six a day. After taking three deep drags, she lowered the window and threw the butt out. She started the car and pulled out of the garage, into traffic. She had to wait for one of the city's finest to move from in front of her, and it made her think of Bob again.

Of them all, Bob treated her most normally. He said whatever was on his mind and didn't sugar coat it. He treated her as if she weren't diseased. With him, she felt almost normal. He'd given her his card, in the beginning, in case she remembered anything. He'd even written his home number on the back. She remembered being astonished that he'd give her such personal information. She felt the impulse to call him and reached for her purse to find the card and her cell phone. Then she remembered the story about the councilman's wife and left the phone where it was.

When she got home, she put her stuff away and showered.

Then she dug out his card and called him.

"Duncan," came the almost gruff voice on the phone.

"Bob? Detective? This is Lacey Fetterman."

"Are you all right?" came his immediate question.

"Yes," she sighed. "I'm fine. I don't know why I called."

"You wanted to talk to somebody," he suggested.

She realized he was right. She still didn't know what she wanted to talk about, but he was right. She just wanted to hear a friendly voice.

"I guess so," she said.

"You want to talk on the phone or in person?" he asked.

She hadn't thought that far ahead.

"I don't know," she said, feeling helpless.

"Well, you haven't had time to eat. Do you like shrimp?"

"I love shrimp," she said. "But I'm trying to learn how to be a vegetarian."

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" he asked.

"Paul is..." She stopped. She had been trying to become what her husband—her soon to be ex-husband—had become. "I love shrimp," she said, impulsively.

"You want to meet me there, or pick me up, or have me pick you up?" he asked, his tone businesslike.

She was silently amazed. He didn't just decide anything. He gave her options. He gave her too many options, in fact, and her mind stalled, trying to figure out which one to take.

"We should probably drive separately," she said. "You have to go to work tomorrow."

"Actually, I'm off tomorrow," said his steady voice. "I'm moving to swing shift tomorrow night."

"Oh," she said, not knowing how to respond.

"Why don't you pick me up," he suggested. "The place I'm thinking of isn't far from my place."

He gave her instructions on how to get to his building, and they hung up.

On the way there, Lacey realized he had intentionally put her in control. By having her pick him up, she would know where he lived. She would be in control of the car. She would control how long they spent together and could end it any time she chose, and not be dependent on him to get home. She wondered if he had done that on purpose...or if it had just happened that way.

These were the kinds of things that were driving her crazy. She read into every situation...analyzed everything around her. Even at work, she wondered if people had ulterior motives. Her attacker had planned his assault. She knew that now. He had fixed the door, downstairs. He had chosen her. He may have even known that Paul was out of town. He had manipulated her at every turn, taken every shred of control away from her. He had even made her body betray her. She felt the rage well up inside her again, and noticed she was speeding.

She had to pull over to get her composure back. By the time she saw Bob, standing on the curb, she was breathing normally. Her stomach hurt, but she knew that would pass, too.

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