Mortal Fear. Greg Iles

… what is your first sexual memory?”

      “What do you mean? Like as a kid?”

      “Your first sexual memory of any kind.”

      “Well … trying to peek under my mother’s nightgown while she was sleeping, I guess.”

      “What did you see?”

      “Not much. It was dark.”

      “After that?”

      “Playing doctor in a tree house.”

      “With girls or boys?”

      “Girls. One girl.”

      “The same age as you?”

      “Yes.”

      “What age?”

      “I don’t know. Definitely little kids. Innocent stuff.”

      “Any genital touching?”

      “Nah. Just show-and-tell.”

      “What about same-sex play?”

      I hesitate. “A little.”

      “One boy, or several together?”

      “Several. Just neighborhood buddies.”

      “How old were you?”

      “Older. Still young, though.”

      “Any fear that you were a homosexual because of it?”

      “We didn’t even know what a homosexual was. Discovering my dad’s stash of Playboys was like unearthing the Rosetta Stone.”

      “Have you had online sex with other men?”

      “Not knowingly.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “A lot of men pretend to be women online. On regular networks it’s because there’s a shortage of women. But on EROS that doesn’t apply. Some men still do it there, so I guess I could unknowingly have fantasized sex with a man.”

      “But you’ve never pretended to be a woman online?”

      “Once. My wife told me I should try it to see what it felt like. I did, and I didn’t like it.”

      “Why?”

      “It’s like you’re assaulted from every side. Even on EROS, which is the most civilized online service, being a woman means you’re constantly approached by men. It’s the loss of control, I guess.”

      “How old were you when you first had sex with a woman?”

      “All the way? Complete intercourse?”

      “Serious foreplay. Touching of genitals.”

      “Probably … thirteen. With a couple of curious girls the same age. When I was fourteen this other girl and I did pretty much everything but intercourse. We were in love, though. Jesus. Like holding hands and kissing and touching each other was some kind of new religion. An indescribable intensity of feeling. Your heart pounding like it would punch through your chest. She was a year older than me.”

      “How did that relationship end?”

      “She broke my heart after seven months. I still remember that. Funny, huh? Seven months. I was physically sick. I think that warped me. I was never willing to fall totally for a girl after that. I knew what could happen.”

      “How did that color your relationship with other girls? You were angry?”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “When did you first have sexual intercourse?

      “Fifteen. The girl was eighteen.”

      “A one-time experience?”

      “Are you kidding? Once I got a taste of that, it was nonstop. Day and night, sneaking out of the house, anywhere we could find a place.”

      “What kind of places did you usually find?”

      “Outside, mostly. Or in the car, you know.”

      “Not in her parents’ house?”

      “No. We had a little respect.”

      “What do you remember most about that relationship?”

      I close my eyes. “Later, a couple of years later, I heard she’d become a slut. I’d really started to care for her after a while. She was country, but she read poetry, like that. She was a real person, just a little lost. She had feelings nobody knew about. It was sad.”

      “What makes you say that?”

      “Well … I read her diary once.”

      “She let you read her diary?”

      “Not exactly. I went over to her house one time, and nobody answered the door. I went in anyway.”

      “The door was open?”

      “No. The few times I’d sneaked in to see her, I went though her window, so I did that. I looked around the house. Her room, especially. I found this little calendar where she’d written really small in the day spaces, like a diary.”

      “What had she written?”

      “All kinds of things. She had codes. Simple ones. There were Xs on the days when she had her periods, that was easy. Then there were some initials, which I figured out were guys she knew—guys her age. Then there was ‘M.L.’ on some days, which stood for ‘made love.’ I knew that because I’d been with her on those days.”

      “All of them?”

      “Not all.”

      “How did you feel reading that diary?”

      “Like a spy.”

      “You put it back where you found it?”

      “No. I took it.”

      “Stole it?”

      “Mm-hm. There were a few of them. I just took the one.”

      “Do you still have it?”

      “No.”

      “When did you get rid of it?”

      “Just after I got married. With a bunch of old letters and stuff. I didn’t want Drewe finding that kind of thing. Stuff from old girlfriends, you know? Some of it was pretty explicit. And she knew some of the girls.”

      “Why did you keep those letters so long?”

      “All is vanity, right?”

      Lenz scribbles something on his notepad. “How many women have you slept with in your life?”

      I pause. “Fifteen.”

      “Approximately fifteen? Or fifteen exactly?”

      “Exactly.”

      “You could write down all their names? Here and now, I mean?”

      “Yeah, but I won’t.”

      “But you’ve written down their names before.”

      “Yes.”

      “Ever rated their performances? Their looks, what they did, things like that?”

      “Any guy who says he hasn’t is probably lying.”

      Lenz chuckles, a quick deep rumble. “Odd, isn’t it? This compulsion to prove what we have done? Were you in love with these women?”

      “I thought I was, with some of them. Some not. I guess I just wanted to know they wanted me enough to do that.”

      “One-night stands?”

      “Not my thing.”

      Lenz