False Memory

she hadn’t sustained them during ordinary physical activity.
    Immediately on waking, she always knew when the phantom intruder had visited her during the night, even if she wasn’t sore or bruised, even before she grew aware of the deposit he left in her, because she felt violated, unclean.
    Feelings, however, were not proof.
    The semen was the only evidence that she had been with a man, but it did not absolutely confirm rape.
    Besides, presenting her stained panties to the authorities—or, worse yet, submitting to a vaginal swab in a hospital emergency room—would involve more embarrassment than she’d be able to endure in her current condition.
    Indeed, her condition, the agoraphobia, was the primary reason she had been reluctant to confide in Martie, let alone in the police or other strangers. Although enlightened people knew that an extreme phobia wasn’t a form of madness, they could not help but regard it as odd. And when she claimed that she was being sexually violated in her sleep, by a ghostly assailant whom she’d never seen, by a man who could enter through bolted doors... Well, even her lifelong best friend might wonder if the agoraphobia, while not itself a form of madness, was a precursor to genuine mental illness.
    Now, after checking the dead bolts yet again, Susan impatiently reached for the telephone. She couldn’t wait a minute longer for Martie’s considered response. She needed to be reassured that her best friend, if no one else, believed in the phantom rapist.
    Susan keyed the first four digits of Martie’s number—but hung up. Patience. If she appeared fragile or too needy, she might seem less believable.
    Returning to the marsala sauce, she realized she was too nervous to be lulled by culinary rituals. She wasn’t hungry, either.
    She opened a bottle of Merlot, poured a glassful, and sat at the kitchen table. Lately, she was drinking more than usual.
    After sipping the Merlot, she held the glass up to the light. The dark ruby liquid was clear, apparently uncontaminated.
    For a while, she had been convinced that someone was drugging her. That possibility was still troubling but not as likely as it had once seemed.
    Rohypnol—which the news media had dubbed the date-rape drug—might explain how she was able to remain unconscious, or at least oblivious, even during rough intercourse. Mix Rohypnol into a woman’s drink, and she appears to be in an advanced stage of inebriation: disoriented, pliant—defenseless. The drugged state ultimately gives way to genuine sleep, and upon waking, she has little or no memory of what took place during the night.
    In the morning, however, after her mysterious visitor ravaged her, Susan never experienced any symptoms of Rohypnol hangover. No queasy stomach, no dry mouth, no blurring of vision, no throbbing headache, no lingering disorientation. Routinely, she woke clear-headed, even refreshed, though feeling violated.
    Nevertheless, she had repeatedly changed grocers. Sometimes Susan relied on Martie to do her shopping, but for the most part she ordered groceries and other supplies from smaller family-owned markets that offered home delivery. Few provided that extra service these days, even for a charge. Although Susan had tried all of them, paranoically certain that someone was lacing her food with drugs, changing vendors didn’t bring an end to the postmidnight assaults.
    In desperation, she had sought answers in the supernatural. The mobile library brought her lurid books about ghosts, vampires, demons, exorcism, black magic, and abductions by extraterrestrials.
    The delivering librarian, to his credit, never once commented upon—or even raised an eyebrow at—Susan’s insatiable appetite for this peculiar subject matter. Anyway, it was no doubt healthier than an interest in contemporary politics or celebrity gossip.
    Susan had been particularly fascinated by the legend of the incubus. This evil spirit visited women in their sleep and had sex with them while they dreamed.
    Fascination had never become conviction. She hadn’t descended so far into superstition that she had slept with copies of the Bible at all four corners of her bed or while wearing a necklace of garlic.
    Ultimately, she ceased researching the supernatural, because as she delved into those irrational realms, her agoraphobia intensified.
    By sitting down to a banquet of unreason, she seemed to be feeding the sick part of her psyche in which her inexplicable fear thrived.
    Her glass of Merlot