Author Topic: PseudoPod 785: Closet Dreams  (Read 604 times)

Bdoomed

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on: November 23, 2021, 06:43:39 AM
PseudoPod 785: Closet Dreams

Author: Lisa Tuttle
Narrator: Julie Hoverson
Host: Kitty Sarkozy
Audio Producer: Chelsea Davis

“Closet Dreams” was originally published in PostScripts and was a finalist for the Stoker Award.

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Content Warning:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)



Something terrible happened to me when I was a little girl.

I don’t want to go into details. I had to do that far too often in the year after it happened, first telling the police everything I could remember in the  hope it would help them catch the monster, then talking for hours and hours to all sorts of therapists, doctors, shrinks and specialists brought in to help me. Talking about it was supposed to help me understand what had happened, achieve closure, and move on.

I just wanted to forget – I thought that’s what ‘putting it behind me’ meant – but they said to do that, first I had to remember. I thought I did remember – in fact, I was sure I did – but they wouldn’t believe what I told them. They said it was a fantasy, created to cover something I couldn’t bear to admit. For my own good  I had to remember the truth.

So I racked my brain and forced myself to relive my darkest memories, giving them more and more specifics, suffering through every horrible moment a second, third and fourth time before belatedly realizing it wasn’t the stuff the monster had done to me that they could not believe. There was nothing at all impossible about a single detail of my abduction, imprisonment and abuse, not even the sick particulars of what he called ‘playing’. I had been an innocent; it was all new to me, but they were adults, professionals who had dealt with too many victims. It came as no surprise to them that there were monsters living among us, looking just like ordinary men, but really the worst kind of sexual predator.

The only thing they did not believe in was my escape. It could not have happened the way I said. Surely I must see that?




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